I saw a report on the evening news about possible connections between Lead and Alzheimer's - the story is on YouTube here. As mentioned above, NEO's Peter Whitehouse has been considering this relationship for some time... Cleveland is certainly a perfect place to study these interrelated diseases, with the high level of lead poisoning and local expertise on  Alzheimer's... visit Peter's "The Myth of  Alzheimer's" website for the latest news and thought on that important subject...

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LONDON (Reuters) - Mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday.The findings, which come from a series of published papers by a researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of dementia."On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain," Susanne Akterin, a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who led the study, said in a statement."We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors ... can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer's."Alzheimer's disease is incurable and is the most common form of dementia among older people. It affects the regions of the brain involving thought, memory and language.While the most advanced drugs have focused on removing clumps of beta amyloid protein that forms plaques in the brain, researchers are also now looking at therapies to address the toxic tangles caused by an abnormal build-up of the protein tau.In her research, Akterin focused on a gene variant called apoE4, found in 15 to 20 percent of people and which is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's. The gene is involved in the transport of cholesterol.She studied mice genetically engineered to mimic the effect of the variant gene in humans, and which were fed a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol for nine months -- meals representing the nutritional content of fast food.These mice showed chemical changes in their brains, indicating an abnormal build-up of the protein tau as well as signs that cholesterol in food reduced levels of another protein called Arc involved in memory storage, Akterin said."All in all, the results give some indication of how Alzheimer's can be prevented, but more research in this field needs to be done before proper advice can be passed on to the general public," she said.(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Catherine Bosley)

From: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE4AR48G20081128

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Just thinking....

 ...if you combine people who already have lead levels with a diet that consists mainly of fast food, what is the result of these combined factors???

At a recent GCLAC steering committee meeting I was enliughtened to learn of the direct relationship between lead poisoning and hypertension, and heart failure, as well documented in this 1988 paper (abstract below) and many other places... and link that to a bad diet... and consider lead poisoning is found to relate to Alzheimer's type problems, which may be compounded by bad diet... so if living in a high lead poisoning environment eating largely high cholesterol and fat diets doesn't fry your heart, it'll fry your brain. Nice population control strategy...

Chronic and acute lead poisoning cause overt, clinical symptoms of
cardiac and vascular damage with potentially lethal consequences.
Morphological, biochemical, and functional derangements of the heart
have all been described in patients following exposure to excessive
lead levels. Disturbances in cardiac electrical and mechanical activity
and postmortem evidence of morphological and biochemical derangements
of the myocardium have all been reported following excessive exposure
to lead in humans. In addition, signs of vascular degeneration,
abnormal vascular smooth muscle function, and altered vessel compliance
have been described in humans chronically and acutely exposed to toxic
lead levels. Similar cardiovascular complications have been detected
following excessive lead exposure in experimental animals. Myocarditis,
electrocardiographic disturbances, heightened catecholamine
arrhythmogenicity, altered myocardial contractile responsiveness to
inotropic stimulation, degenerative structural and biochemical changes
affecting the musculature of the heart and vasculature, hypertension,
hypercholesterolemia, atherosclerosis, and increased vascular
reactivity to alpha-adrenergic agonists have been among the reported
cardiovascular disturbances linked to lead poisoning. Less certain are
the cardiovascular effects of subclinical lead poisoning. Although
controversial, chronic low-level lead exposure has been linked to
hypertension and other cardiovascular disturbances in both clinical and
experimental studies. In general, it can be concluded that lead over a
wide range of exposure intensities can induce significant changes in
the function of the cardiovascular system. Evidence points to the
involvement of multiple sites of action. Cardiac and vascular sites, as
well as sites within the central nervous system, have all been
implicated in the sequelae of cardiovascular effects. The exact
pathogenic mechanisms that underlie the actions of lead in the
cardiovascular system, however, have yet to be elucidated definitively.

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Biochemist Gregory Petsko makes a convincing argument that, in the next 50 years, we'll see an epidemic of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's, as the world population ages. His solution: more research into the brain and its functions.  

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/gregory_petsko_on_the_coming_neurological_epidemic.html

I did as suggested in the comments and googled "marijuana parkinson's". Yes indeedy, we gotta keep the drug war going here in the US. It is a real job provider. It keeps the cradle to prison pipeline flowing.

Meanwhile in Switzerland:

** Swiss approve prescription heroin**

Swiss voters overwhelmingly back a change in health policy that would provide prescription heroin to addicts.

Peter B. Lewis - are you reading this?

Turn on, tune out, drop out...am I the only one experiencing flashbacks, here? 

If last night's airing of Smothered on WVIZ is any indicator, we are reliving the sixties.  I only wish I could get my hands on whatever deep brain stimulation keeps Tommy and Dick Smothers going...

This sounds like my kind of science :)

http://www.case.edu/affil/sigmaxi/Posters/SCC%20Poster%202008-12.pdf