What is Alzheimer disease?

Alzheimer is a brain disease, which sees the organ deteriorate at an alarmingly fast rate; this can be caused by chemical changes, and cells being destroyed – disabling the brain from making connections and signals, a vital method for your body to have motor skills, speech, sight, hearing, and logical thinking.

Symptoms can include:

• Memory loss.
• Losing use of limbs and other bodily functions.
• Loss of logic and problem – solving abilities.
• Severe stages can lead to loss of independence and need for care.
• The disease eventually results in death, when the brain has deteriorated to the point of not being able to function.

What current treatments are available for Alzheimer’s?

There is no current cure, but similar to cancer, it depends on the stage the disease is at, to how much the treatment can prevent it from progressing, and for any future damage to your motor skills.

Treatments available for early stage Alzheimer’s:

• Cognitive stimulation – exercises for improving thinking, logic and memory.
• Cholinesterase inhibitors – Galantamine, Rivastigmine or Donepezil – these drugs can stop disease progression, and help people to function better.
• Memantine – these are for severe forms of the condition, where the drug can reduce some of the symptoms, but it cannot stop progression or cure the disease.

What’s the new Molecular mechanism that’s been discovered?

A molecule, known as NCAM2, was found to be very low in Alzheimer sufferers, which was discovered in alive and dead patients – a scientific breakthrough, that has never been detected before with the disease.

It was also discovered that the clumps found in the sufferers’ brain were beta-amyloid proteins, which were destroying the NCAM2 chemical.

Why is this important?

This means that by identifying the new brain pattern, it can lead to a very effective measurement of the condition and a much earlier diagnosis of the disease, which allows for more options to be available for the patient – with a much higher chance of stopping progression very early on.

Benefits of the new Molecular mechanism:

• Gives a direction for new treatments to focus on the balance of NCAM2 patients, which seems to be the strong offender in causing the disease.
• Opportunity to discover the disease in very early stages – giving the patient a much higher chance of recovering.
• Having a measurement of NCAM2 levels gives a lot of information about the stage that the patient is at with the disease – with even the potential for future medicines to increase levels in sufferers, thus reversing the Alzheimer’s.

Disadvantages of the new Molecular mechanism:

• Although the data is there, with a much higher understanding, it is still a wide open field with a lot of questions that need to be answered.
• Time and expense in doing the brain procedure.
• It still hasn’t brought a cure, but a more effective indicator of Alzheimer’s development.

Evaluation:

This new finding is a breakthrough, which has provided a lot more understanding about Alzheimer’s for medical scientists – with even a new direction to look for when trying to find cures for the future.

However, for the here and now, it is still under testing and hasn’t been released mainstream yet to the public. But the measurement for NCAM2 has high potential, especially for checking a patient’s progress, which would be a lot more accurate in knowing what treatment they should choose.

How is Reprogramming Genes possible?

It may sound like something out of a science fiction story, as up until the latest breakthrough, cell engineering had almost been impossible to achieve. The main challenge for scientists was being able to refract information from a single human cell.

What has changed?

Technology has now progressed, which enables us to make cellular adjustments, on both epigenetic and genetic angles; at the same time, we have also come closerto changing somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells.

What does this mean?

By using the resources from this technology, it is now possible to reprogram the gene sequence, to prolong a healthy youthful body for a much longer period.

The benefits of Reprogramming Genes to prolong life:

• Improve the quality of life, by having full use of our bodies, which will surpass whatever age you are.
• Prevent your body from diseases or deterioration.
• Not having to retire early/prevent sickness from work (loss of earnings).
• A Healthy body means a healthy mind, giving you a longer life fulfilment.
• You will have a much longer life expectancy (on the circumstance of natural death, not including accidents, murder or other such circumstances).

The disadvantages of Reprogramming Genes to prolong life:

• Still a lot of difficulty in reprogramming the host genome.
• Controlling the gene expression is very problematic.
• It’s a very long and complicated process, especially in transferring the new genes over.
• Unstable in gene rearrangements.
• The process would consume a lot of time and money, with the risk still being enormously high that it would be unsuccessful.
• Controlling and suppressing ‘nature’ can usually end in consequences.
• If successful, the human population would outgrow the planet, from the amount being born into the world and the decline in people dying – the resources on the planet may not be sufficient to cater to an even larger population boom.

Evaluation of Gene Reprogramming:

Although the feasibility is low at present, it is an enormous field that has opened up with a lot of hype in recent times. Gene Reprogramming has a lot of potential for mankind in the future, with the technology getting better at a very quick rate and the mastermind human understanding along with enormous amount of research they have collected already.

Prolonging human life expectancy, although there are the disadvantages with a population boom in general, it does mean we could keep our grandparents, or even great – grandparents for much longer and there would be a lot less grief in families.

Another benefit for the future mankind is being able to keep humans alive a lot longer in space, to discover and conquer other planets; to spread humanity outside of the planet that we live on.

Summary

I agree with the notion of editing human genes, for a much healthier, longer and better quality of life, as it is evident that illness and disease are caused by those unfortunate enough to have bad genetics.

Although, there is still a lot of work to be done, for the process to not only be effective but also the technology to provide it on a larger scale. So it would be crazy to rush through it and introduce it to the market when a lot more research is needed.

What else can I do to make my genes are healthy?

A lot of environmental and external factors play an important role in the health of our genes, so applying these methods should contribute to giving you a prolonged and healthy future:

• Eating healthy e.g. vegetables, fruits, fish, minerals, etc. Eating the wrong foods can play a huge role in the way your genes shape themselves.
• Exercise plenty.
• Be happy with life – general wellbeing effects the way our cells work. If you are the type to suffer depression, then try and stimulate your mind by activity engagement, exercise (as mentioned above), or finding a passion that you love. There are many ways to bring positive changes to your life to obtain a happier mind.

Everyone Wants to Live Longer

It is a difficult task to find people who do not want to extend their lives. There is always something more to see, to experience, to live for. It is one of life’s greatest goals to find a way to live as long as possible.

Most people know the common factors, eating healthy and exercising. But what most people do not realise, is that your sleep can have a huge impact on your health, and thus on how long you can live. One of the best ways to be healthy is to ensure that every night you get enough sleep.

Sleep Studies

To understand why sleep is such an important factor in our health, many researchers have conducted sleep studies. Such studies have been being conducted since 1925, researching on how you sleep, and the effect that it has on your body.

Recent studies have begun to focus on why we sleep. Most of the studies have shown that sleep can affect the health of both our body and mind, as well as regulating many of the processes of our body. These processes include memory and metabolism. When you lack in sleep, you help fuel diseases that can wreck your body.

Vital for Now

The issue of how sleep affects our bodies has never been more important than it is today. Americans are becoming more and more “24/7”, meaning that they work all day, everyday.

Resting has become less important than working. As the cost of living continues to increase, people feel forced to work more to keep up. As a result, many Americans are developing sleep disorders that are going undiagnosed.

More than 70 million people have sleep disorders, and more than 20{ed162fdde9fdc472551df9f31f04601345edf7e4eff6ea93114402690d8fa616} of Americans have a poor sleep pattern due to their work hours.

Sleep Disorders and Breathing

One of the biggest problems which accompany sleep disorders is breathing problems while you sleep. The study of sleeping and breathing came to the forefront in 1998, with David Gozal’s study pointing to children with obstructive sleep apnea. These children were found to have a harder time with their academic performance as well.

It helped spur a series of studies on the effects of sleepdisorders and breathing in both adults and children. This is, however, only part of the picture. Many sleep disorders are fuelled by the inability to fall asleep at night, going to bed too late, and trouble falling asleep at night.

Don’t Ignore Your Sleep

Sleep can affect a broad variety of aspects of both your mental and physical health. To maintain a healthy sleeping pattern you can follow the following tips:

• Keep a normal sleeping schedule, no matter what. Wake up at the same time everyday, including weekends.
• Calm your mind before bed, and try to avoid going on any screens before bed.
• Use your bed for only sleeping and having sex.
• Keep your bedroom clean and clutter-free to help keep your mind clear.