Richard W. Besdine, MD, on Alzheimer’s Disease Risk Factors

In his latest blog post, AFAR Medical Officer Richard W. Besdine, MD, addresses the widespread misperception that there is nothing individuals can do to control their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Besdine discusses several actions and habits that can reduce risk of developing Alzheimer’s. He also explores the risk factors that remain out of individuals' control, as well as Alzheimer’s prevalence and treatment in the US today. This is the tenth post in Dr. Besdine's series on health care and aging on the AOL Healthy Living site. Read all of his articles…

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Grantee in the News: Vera Gorbunova, PhD, finds cancer-prevention mechanism in long-lived rodent

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences on November 5, Vera Gorbunova, PhD, uncovered a cellular mechanism that keeps the blind mole rat, an exceptionally long-lived rodent, from developing cancer. When she and her team created cultures of blind mole rat tissue, the release of the molecule interferon-beta triggered coordinated cell death, preventing the uncontrolled proliferation of cancerous cells. Interestingly, this is distinct from the previously discovered cancer-prevention mechanism in the cells of the naked mole rat, a different long-lived and cancerfree rodent. The work was reported in the Wired and Nature blogs. Dr. Gorbunova…

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