Many Americans do not think twice about taking medicines to prevent heart disease and stroke. But cancer is different. Much of what Americans do in the name of warding off cancer has not been shown to matter, and some things are actually harmful. Yet the few medicines proved to deter cancer are widely ignored.

Take prostate cancer, the second-most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States, surpassed only by easily treated skin cancers. More than 192,000 cases of it will be diagnosed this year, and more than 27,000 men will die from it.

And, it turns out, there is a way to prevent many cases of prostate cancer. A large and rigorous study found that a generic drug, finasteride, costing about $2 a day, could prevent as many as 50,000 cases each year. Another study found that finasteride’s close cousin, dutasteride, about $3.50 a day, has the same effect.

read entire article

What is the ICARA study?

The current medications for Alzheimer’s disease are mostly aimed at maximizing the brain activity. The ICARA study is evaluating the safety and effectiveness of an investigational drug aimed at slowing down the disease progression.

Go to the ICARA website to see how to participate

Spikes in blood sugar can take a toll on memory by affecting the dentate gyrus, an area of the brain within the hippocampus that helps form memories, a new study reports.

Researchers said the effects can be seen even when levels of blood sugar, or glucose, are only moderately elevated, a finding that may help explain normal age-related cognitive decline, since glucose regulation worsens with age.

The study, by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and funded in part by the National Institute on Aging, was published in the December issue of Annals of Neurology.

“If we conclude this is underlying normal age-related cognitive decline, then it affects all of us,” said lead investigator Dr. Scott Small, associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center. The ability to regulate glucose starts deteriorating by the third or fourth decade of life, he added

Since glucose regulation is improved with physical activity, Dr. Small said, “We have a behavioral recommendation — physical exercise.”

Heredity, genetics make disease more likely, but how much isn't clear

updated 9:25 a.m. ET, Mon., Oct. 13, 2008

For adult children of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, the diagnosis can be devastating — and not just because of what it means for their parents.

Along with concerns about caregiving and grief over the loss of the mother or father they knew, there’s another, more private fear: What if I get it, too?

Read More