FRIDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- As the American Psychiatric Association unveils the latest edition of what is considered the "bible" of modern psychiatry this weekend, the uproar over its many changes continues.

"This is unprecedented, the amount of commentary and debate and criticism," said Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). "It's been an interesting phenomenon, but the evidence is what it is. You have to evaluate it and then make your own determination of how compelling it is, and what would be best clinical practice."

The APA believes that changes made in this fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) will allow for more precise diagnoses of mental illnesses in patients, because this edition better characterizes and categorizes disorders.

But it has drawn fire from critics who are concerned that the revised version will lead to the diagnosis of mental illness in people who are simply being challenged by life.

More than 1,500 experts from 39 countries representing a wide variety of medical fields contributed to the new DSM-5, which was more than a decade in the making. Drafts of the manual were made available online as part of three open-comment periods that drew more than 13,000 responses.

One of the most notable naysayers has been Dr. Allen Frances, chairman of the task force that created the DSM-4, the previous version of the guide that has been in use since 1994.

In a commentary released the day of the DSM-5's release, Frances wrote that this latest revision introduces "several high-prevalence diagnoses at the fuzzy boundary with normality," and predicted that the changes "will probably lead to substantial false-positive rates and unnecessary treatment."

"In DSM-5, normal grief becomes a major depressive disorder, temper tantrums become disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, worrying about medical illness becomes somatic symptom disorder, gluttony becomes binge eating disorder and almost everyone will soon qualify for attention-deficit disorder," Frances said in an interview.

The main points of contention regarding the DSM-5 include:

• The combination of a number of autism-related disorders into a single category called autism spectrum disorder. Although some clinicians believe that placing autism on a continuum from mild to severe will allow for more accurate diagnoses, others are concerned that high-functioning people with autism will find themselves unable to receive services or treatment. This is particularly true of people with Asperger's Syndrome, a diagnosis that has been eliminated from the DSM-5, critics of the new version contend.

  "We're concerned that people who have Asperger's -- who have high-functioning autism -- are going to be dismissed as just being different when the majority of adults with Asperger's will need people to assist them in parts of their lives," said Karen Rodman, president and founder of Families of Adults Affected With Asperger's Syndrome.

  "We are very concerned that medicine is going to drop the ball again, and the children who need services won't get them," Rodman said. "Fortunately, clinicians and physicians and the public around the world are still going to refer to Asperger's as Asperger's. It's like saying people don't have a right arm anymore.

  "Many people with Asperger's are [also] concerned there will be a stigma -- that everyone will be considered autistic -- and when people think of that they think of a child sitting in a corner and spinning," Rodman added.

• Changes made to the diagnostic criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Critics are concerned that changes made to better diagnose ADHD will instead lead to over-diagnosis. In the previous version of the DSM, a person needed to show the onset of symptoms before age 7 to be diagnosed with ADHD. The new version now says 12 is the latest age at which ADHD symptoms can manifest themselves. The DSM-5 also reduces the number of criteria needed to arrive at a diagnoses of adult ADHD from six to five.
• A new diagnostic category for children who are hostile or acting out. The DSM-5 includes a new category called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, which would apply to children who have extreme irritability but fall short of the standards for bipolar disorder or depression. The category was created to deal with the upswing in bipolar diagnoses among children, but there is concern that some clinicians will label a simple childhood temper tantrum as a treatable mental illness.
• Breaking out obsessive-compulsive disorders into their own category. Obsessions such as hoarding, hair-pulling and skin-picking had been considered anxiety disorders, but in the DSM-5 they will have their own category. Critics are concerned that this change has more to do with reality television's recent focus on hoarders than with the need for a new category of mental illness.

Lieberman called the DSM-5 "a reflection of the state of our scientific knowledge," and strongly disagreed with the notion that over-diagnosis and overmedication will be the end result of the manual's new standards.

"This doesn't reflect any expansion of the people who would be diagnosed. It just classifies them in a more concise and accurate way," he said. "The goal of the DSM is not to expand the number [of people] who receive diagnoses who don't warrant them. The reality is that there is tremendous under-treatment of people with real needs, and this new revision will help."

Reflecting on the strong reaction to the changes, Lieberman said it may go hand-in-hand with the public's uneasiness with mental illness.

"I think there's a strong stigma factor associated with mental illness," he said. "There are people who are either fearful of it or want to minimize its existence. That stigma has been historic, but it has been diminishing with greater education and research and better treatment."

For his part, Frances ascribes nothing but good intentions to those who worked on the new DSM, but is concerned that their efforts will lead to bad outcomes.

"The people who are suggesting these changes are experts in their field who are pure of heart, but they have made terrible decisions because they don't understand that new diagnoses that may work well for them can be an absolute disaster in everyday care, especially when drug companies get their hands on them," he said.

Frances has written a new book, Saving Normal, in which he argues that mental illness is over-diagnosed in America. He urged both parents and clinicians to be skeptical when it comes to the DSM-5 and any diagnoses that spring from it.

"My advice to physicians is to use the DSM-5 cautiously, if at all," Frances concluded in his commentary. "It is not an official manual; no one is compelled to use it unless they work in an institutional setting that requires it."

More information

Fore more on the DSM-5, go to the American Psychiatric Association.

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FRIDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Alcoholics who smoke have more problems with memory, problem solving and quick thinking than those who are nonsmokers, researchers have found.

This "early aging" of the brain gets worse over time, according to the study published online May 17 and in the October print issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

The study measured mental or "cognitive" functioning.

"The independent and interactive effects of smoking and other drug use on cognitive functioning among individuals with [alcohol dependence] are largely unknown," Alecia Dager, an associate research scientist in the department of psychiatry at Yale University, said in a journal news release. "This is problematic because many heavy drinkers also smoke. Furthermore, in treatment programs for alcoholism, the issue of smoking may be largely ignored," she noted.

For the study, adult participants were divided into four groups. The first included 39 healthy people who never smoked. The other groups included people seeking treatment for alcoholism after not drinking for one month. Of these, 30 people had never smoked, 21 were former smokers and 68 were current smokers.

According to study corresponding author Timothy Durazzo, the investigators "focused on the effects of chronic cigarette smoking and increasing age on cognition because previous research suggested that each has independent, adverse effects on multiple aspects of cognition and brain biology in people with and without alcohol use disorders."

The researchers analyzed participants' mental ability in a number of areas.

Durazzo, who is an assistant professor in the department of radiology and biomedical imaging at the University of California, San Francisco, said in the news release that "at one month of abstinence, actively smoking [alcohol-dependent participants] had greater-than-normal age effects on measures of learning, memory, processing speed, reasoning and problem-solving, and fine motor skills."

In contrast, among participants with alcohol problems, "never-smokers and former-smokers showed equivalent changes on all measures with increasing age as the never-smoking controls," he explained.

"These results indicate the combination of alcohol dependence and active chronic smoking was related to an abnormal decline in multiple cognitive functions with increasing age," Durazzo said, and that "the combined effects of these drugs are especially harmful and become even more apparent in older age."

He pointed out that other factors, including nutrition and exercise, may also influence brain function during early abstinence. He added that underlying medical issues including high blood pressure and diabetes as well as psychiatric conditions such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder could also play a role.

Based on their findings, the authors suggested that as people get older, chronic smoking and heavy drinking are associated with increased oxidative damage to the brain.

"Oxidative damage results from increased levels of free radicals and other compounds that directly injure neurons and other cells that make up the brain. Cigarette smoking and excessive alcohol consumption expose the brain to a tremendous amount of free radicals," Durazzo explained.

While the study tied alcohol dependence combined with smoking to early brain aging, it didn't establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

The researchers advised that people seeking treatment for alcohol abuse should also be routinely offered help to quit smoking.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has more about effects of alcohol on the brain.

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FRIDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests the dominant side of your brain may make the call on which ear you choose to use while talking on your cellphone.

The dominant side of your brain is where your speech and language center resides. Ninety-five percent of the human population is left-brain dominant, and those people tend to be right-handed. The opposite holds true for people who are right-brain dominant. In this study, scientists found that roughly 70 percent of those surveyed held their cellphone up to the ear that was on the same side as their dominant hand.

This insight into the way people use their cellphones could one day help doctors quickly and safely locate and protect a patient's language center before beginning a potentially risky brain operation, the researchers said.

"In essence, this could be used as a poor man's Wada test," said study author Dr. Michael Seidman, director of the division of otologic/neurotologic surgery at the Henry Ford Health System in West Bloomfield, Mich. "[The Wada test] is the standard test used today to determine exactly where a surgical patient's language center is located, which is critical information to have if you want to carefully preserve a person's language abilities.

"The Wada test is, however, invasive and risky," Seidman said. "But by looking at how a person uses their cellphone, which side they listen in to, you can get shorthand insight into brain dominance. It's not a foolproof guarantee, but I would say it's a pretty reliable and safe way of going about it."

Seidman and his colleagues reported their findings in the May issue of the journal JAMA Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery.

To explore how brain dominance may relate to cellphone handling, the authors sifted through more than 700 online surveys completed by people who were members of a web-based otology (hearing) discussion group, as well as those already undergoing Wada and MRI testing for various purposes.

Respondents were asked to give information regarding their cellphone habits, favored hand for executing various tasks (such as writing, throwing and cellphone handling) and any hearing-loss issues. Any history of brain, head or neck tumors also was noted.

Ninety percent of those polled were right-handed, and 68 percent used their right ear, 25 percent used their left ear and 7 percent used both ears.

The story was similar among the left-handed people: 72 percent used their left ear, 23 percent used their right ear and 5 percent used both ears.

The team concluded that there is an association between cellphone handling habits and brain dominance, with right-ear cellphone use typically indicating left-brain dominance, and vice versa.

"We're pretty confident in our results," Seidman said. "Basically, if your speech and language centers are in the left side of the brain -- which for most people they are -- a cellphone conversation is going to sound better in your right ear."

"The next question is if this information may help us figure out whether or not cellphone use is associated with cancer risk," he said.

On that front, Seidman suggested that, if there was such an association, there would be a much greater incidence of right-sided brain, head and neck cancer than currently is the case, given that nearly 80 percent of all people use their right ear to talk on their phones.

"But the question of cancer risk and cellphone use is very controversial," he said. "We just don't know yet. Much more work needs to be done."

Dr. Joe Verghese, a professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City, suggested that it remains possible that other variables could influence the way people choose to handle their cellphones.

"This is certainly a very interesting study," Verghese said. "But it could also be that right-handed people, for example, simply reach for their cellphone with their dominant hand, and then naturally feel more comfortable continuing to keep it and use it on their right side because it would feel awkward to pick up a phone with your right hand and then switch it over to your left side.

"If that's the case, this could actually be about motor dominance more than auditory or language dominance," he said.

More information

For more on left- and right-brain dominance, visit the American Psychological Association.

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THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Women in their 40s and 50s who suffer from depression are almost twice as likely to have a stroke as women who aren't depressed, according to a large, long-running Australian study.

This is not the first study to link depression with an increased risk for stroke, in both men and women. Exactly how depression is associated with stroke is unclear, as is whether treating it reduces the risk, experts say.

"Although the absolute risk of stroke is low in mid-aged women, depression does appear to have a large adverse effect on stroke risk in this age group," said lead researcher Caroline Jackson, an epidemiologist in the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland.

"Our findings, however, suggest that depression may be a stronger risk factor for stroke in mid-aged women than was previously thought," she said.

Despite the growing body of evidence on depression and risk of stroke, depression is generally not included in guidelines for primary stroke prevention, which appears to be an important omission that should be addressed, Jackson noted.

The report was published May 16 in the journal Stroke.

One expert said this latest finding adds to the growing pile of evidence on the link.

"This large study among Australian women adds further evidence supporting the association between depression and stroke risk," said Dr. Ralph Sacco, chairman of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Other studies have also demonstrated the effects of depression on stroke risk, he added. "Although we are not clear about the mechanisms, depression is frequent and needs to be more readily recognized and appropriately treated," Sacco said.

To see how much depression influenced the risk of stroke, Jackson and her colleague Gita Mishra, a professor of life course epidemiology at the University of Queensland, collected data on more than 10,000 women aged 47 to 52 who took part in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health.

Women in the survey answered questions about both physical and mental health every three years from 1998 to 2010.

Among these women, about 24 percent said they suffered from depression. Over the study period 177 women had a stroke for the first time.

Analysis by Jackson and Mishra found depressed women were 2.4 times more likely to have a stroke than women who weren't depressed.

After eliminating some of the other factors that increase the risk of stroke, depressed women still were 1.9 times more likely to have a stroke, compared to women who were not depressed, they found.

Risk factors included: age; socioeconomic status; lifestyle habits such as smoking, alcohol and physical activity; and high blood pressure, heart disease, being overweight and diabetes.

Jackson noted that in absolute terms the risk for women in this age group having a stroke is still small.

In the study, about 1.5 percent of all women had a stroke, and it increased to slightly more than 2 percent among women with depression, she noted.

While the study tied depression to increased stroke risk, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

According to Jackson, this is the first large study that looked at the association between depression and stroke in younger middle-aged women.

In the United States, another long-running study on women's health -- the Nurses' Health Study -- found a 30 percent higher risk of stroke among depressed women. The average age of women in that study, however, was 14 years older, Jackson said.

The compelling evidence of an association between depression and stroke, "reinforce the need for adequate targeted prevention, detection and control of poor mental health among mid-aged women," Jackson said.

And since the reasons for association aren't known, "we need to carry out further research to identify the mechanism by which depression affects stroke risk, since this may have implications for development of future treatment of depression and stroke prevention strategies," she said.

More information

To learn more about stroke, visit the National Stroke Association.

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THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- As many as one in five American children under the age of 17 has a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year, according to a new federal report.

Released Thursday, the report represents the government's first comprehensive look at mental disorders in children. It focuses on diagnoses in six areas: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), behavioral or conduct disorders, mood and anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorders, substance abuse, and Tourette syndrome.

The most common mental disorder among children aged 3 through 17 is ADHD. Nearly 7 percent -- about one in 15 children -- in that age group have a current diagnosis, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For other disorders, 3.5 percent of children currently have behavioral or conduct problems, 3 percent suffer from anxiety, about 2 percent have depression and about 1 percent have autism. About two children out of 1,000 aged 6 to 17 have Tourette Syndrome.

Among teens, about 5 percent had abused or were dependent on illegal drugs within the past year. More than 4 percent were abusers of alcohol, and nearly 3 percent reported being regular cigarette smokers.

The report, which supplements the May 17 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, also noted gender differences in mental disorders.

"Boys are more likely than girls to have most of the disorders overall," said Ruth Perou, the team leader for child development studies at the CDC.

Boys specifically are more prone to ADHD, behavioral or conduct problems, autism spectrum disorders, anxiety and Tourette syndrome, and are more likely to be smokers than girls, Perou said. They're also more likely to die by suicide.

"On the other hand, girls are more likely to have depression or an alcohol-use disorder," she said.

Although this is the first time the CDC has tried to compile prevalence estimates for some of the most common mental disorders in a single report, the agency has long tracked rates of many of these illnesses through population surveys.

"We are seeing increases across the board in a lot of mental disorders," Perou said. Some of the biggest jumps have been in ADHD and autism. "We don't know if it's due to greater awareness, or if these conditions actually are going up," she said.

Perou said that is a question they will try to answer as they continue to track children's mental disorders going forward.

"The good news is that mental disorders are diagnosable and treatable," she said. "If we act early, we can really make a huge difference in children's live and in families' lives overall."

More information

To find out more about children's mental health, head to the U.S. National Institute for Mental Health.

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THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Could you someday zap your way to a smarter brain? Preliminary new research suggests that it's a possibility: Scientists report that they were able to improve the math-calculation skills of college students by buzzing their brains with doses of random high-frequency noise.

But don't go searching for a brain zapper at Walmart just yet. It's not clear why "transcranial random noise stimulation" might boost thinking skills, and the necessary equipment isn't sitting on the shelves at your local hardware store. The treatment is considered to be harmless but has only been studied for a few years, and the study findings aren't definitive.

For now, though, the results of the new study are promising, said author Roi Cohen Kadosh, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, in England. "We can enhance one of the most complicated high-level cognitive [mental] functions and improve brain response after just five days of training, with a long-lasting effect six months later."

Scientists have only been studying transcranial random noise stimulation for about five years, Cohen Kadosh said. Researchers use the technique to stimulate the brain's cortex by putting electrodes on the scalp and delivering random bits of electrical noise. "It is non-invasive, painless -- the level of current is generated by home batteries, and is very low -- and relatively cheap," he said.

Transcranial random noise stimulation is considered to be harmless, and several studies haven't mentioned any adverse effects in those who have been zapped. Researchers are interested in one possible positive effect, though: changes in how the brain processes things.

"The brain is working on electricity, and in some cases poor behavior and cognitive [thinking] abilities appear when there's less activation of regions that are otherwise active," Cohen Kadosh said. "We thought that if we can make it easier for neurons to fire, it will allow an improved performance."

In the study, appearing May 16 in the journal Current Biology, researchers recruited 51 Oxford students and gave them five days of training and testing as they performed arithmetic tasks. The tasks tested their ability to remember math facts (like 4 x 8 = 32) and make calculations (like 32 - 17 + 5 = 20), Cohen Kadosh said.

Some of the participants received transcranial random noise stimulation when they performed the math tasks. Those participants were two to five times better at learning things, he said. And, six months after the stimulation, they were 28 percent better at making calculations than the other participants.

Scientists aren't sure why the stimulation treatment may boost learning and thinking, but Cohen Kadosh said it may have something to do with activating neurons in the brain.

Why might brain-zapping be a good thing? "We all want to improve our learning and to make it faster if possible, and we also want to help those who have problems in learning" due to disease, developmental problems or aging, he said. Also, "around 20 percent of the population finds math challenging."

However, don't try this at home, advised Dr. Colleen Loo, a brain researcher and professor of psychiatry at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who called the research "promising."

"If the electrodes are not correctly applied, it could cause scalp burns," Loo said. "Also, the exact placement of the positive and negative electrodes is essential, otherwise you could create quite different brain effects, including negative effects. There is still a lot more we need to know about this technology."

What's next? "There is a way to go, but this shows that it is feasible to improve human cognition and brain function in a long-lasting fashion," Cohen Kadosh said, "and this will hopefully trigger further research that will have more validity."

More information

For more about the brain, try Harvard Medical School's Whole Brain Atlas.

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WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Military service members who sustain more than one mild traumatic brain injury may be at much greater risk of suicide, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Utah found that the risk for suicidal thoughts or behaviors increased for a lifetime, not just short-term, among those with multiple head injuries.

"Up to now, no one has been able to say if multiple [traumatic brain injuries], which are common among combat veterans, are associated with higher suicide risk," study author Craig Bryan, an assistant professor of psychology, said in a university news release. "This study suggests they are, and it provides valuable information for professionals treating wounded combat servicemen and servicewomen to help manage the risk of suicide."

A traumatic brain injury is caused by a bump, blow or jolt to the head, or a penetrating head injury that disrupts brain function, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although these injuries can range from mild to severe, most are mild.

The study, published online May 15 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, involved 161 patients who suffered a possible traumatic brain injury while on duty in Iraq over the course of six months. The patients were mostly men with an average age of 27 and more than six years of military service. They were treated at an outpatient traumatic brain injury clinic at a combat support hospital.

Traumatic brain injury was assessed, and the service members were divided into three groups based on the number of injuries sustained during their lifetime: none, one and two or more.

"An important feature of the study is that by being on the ground in Iraq, we were able to compile a unique data set on active military personnel and head injuries," said Bryan, who also is associate director of the university's National Center for Veterans Studies. "We collected data on a large number of service members within two days of impact."

The patients also were surveyed about their symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, concussions and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

One in five patients who had sustained two or more traumatic brain injuries reported suicidal thoughts or preoccupation with suicide at some point in their past, the study revealed.

Of those who suffered one traumatic brain injury, 6.9 percent reported having suicidal thoughts. None of the participants without a traumatic brain injury had such thoughts.

Of the patients with two or more traumatic brain injuries, 12 percent had suicidal thoughts during the past year. In contrast, 3.4 percent of those with one brain injury had suicidal thoughts.

The study also showed that multiple traumatic brain injuries were associated with a significant increase in depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severity of concussive symptoms. But only the increase in depression severity predicted an increased risk for suicide, the researchers said.

"That head injury and resulting psychological effects increase the risk of suicide is not new," Bryan said. "But knowing that repetitive [traumatic brain injuries] may make patients even more vulnerable provides new insight for tending to military personnel over the long-term, particularly when they are experiencing added emotional distress in their lives."

The researchers said more extensive research involving larger groups of people is needed to confirm the results, since the study found only an association between brain injuries and suicide risk in military personnel and did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among U.S. military personnel.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on brain injuries.

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WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- There's some good news for people who have had certain kinds of skin cancer: A new study suggests that their odds of developing Alzheimer's disease may be significantly lower than it is for others.

People who had non-melanoma skin cancer were nearly 80 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than people who did not. The association was not found with other types of dementia.

To understand the possible association between skin cancer and Alzheimer's, it is important to know that people have a combination of cells that are multiplying and others that are dying, explained study author Dr. Richard Lipton, a professor of neurology, epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. The research was published online May 15 in the journal Neurology.

"When cell division gets out of control, we call that cancer. And when specific populations of brain cells die, we call that Alzheimer's," Lipton said. "So, there is a balance between cell division [growth] and cell death. If you have an individual with an increased risk of cell division over cell death, that may be linked to a decreased risk of Alzheimer's."

The finding was intriguing to one expert.

"It's fascinating that we can get clues about what's going on in the brain by looking at the periphery [skin]," said Terrence Town, a professor in the physiology and biophysics department at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

Non-melanoma skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States; there were more than 2 million new cases in 2012, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

What could be causing the possible association between skin cancer and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's?

"Either developing skin cancer is a marker for some biological process that protects against Alzheimer's or environmental factors may play a role," Lipton said. Genetics could be a factor, as could lots of outdoor physical activity and exercise, although Lipton cautioned people to avoid too much sun exposure and wear sunscreen.

Others think the link may be directly related to how the lowered immune response of skin cells in skin cancer corresponds to a similar immune response in the brain.

"This research is another piece of evidence that tells us that peripheral inflammation [in the skin] is very important in Alzheimer's disease," Town said. He thinks that people who develop non-melanoma skin cancers don't have an immune response in their skin, and thus develop skin cancers, because an immune response may be critical to fighting skin cancer. But that benefits them when it comes to developing Alzheimer's disease.

"This reduced inflammatory response that was permissive to the skin cancer was perhaps beneficial in the brain," said Town.

Town thinks the study suggests a fascinating and important concept: skin cancer may be a biomarker for resistance to Alzheimer's disease. That means, for example, that it may be possible that drugs that dampen the inflammatory response, such as a TNF-alpha inhibitor, could potentially be used to help prevent Alzheimer's disease.

TNF-alpha inhibitors block TNF-alpha, a protein that is present in larger quantities in people who have certain inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and psoriasis. TNF-alpha inhibitors include adalimumab (Humira), etanercept (Enbrel) and infliximab (Remicade).

The latest research involved 1,102 people in New York City, whose average age was 79 when they enrolled in the study. None of the participants had dementia at the beginning of the study. Every year, a team tested them for memory, concentration, language, planning abilities and other factors. During the average four-year follow-up, they were asked annually whether they had developed non-melanoma skin cancer.

At the start of the study, 109 people reported that they had been diagnosed with skin cancer in the past. During the study, 32 people developed skin cancer and 126 people developed dementia, 100 of those with Alzheimer's. Of the 141 people with skin cancer, only two developed Alzheimer's disease, compared to 98 of the 961 people without skin cancer.

Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, defined by declines in memory and other thinking abilities.

"For a long time, we didn't even know inflammation was important, a key factor in the evolution of Alzheimer's disease," said Town. "Now [this paper suggests that] we can start to think more broadly; maybe it's inflammation in the blood or the skin that might be important factors."

Although the study found an association between certain non-melanoma skin cancers and lower risk of Alzheimer's, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

Learn more about skin cancer from the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

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WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Among young heart attack victims, women often have more medical issues, more chest pain and worse quality of life before the event than men, a new study reveals.

The researchers, from the Yale School of Medicine, said young women also tend to have worse mental health with more physical limitations prior to their heart attacks.

The findings could help explain why young women often have worse outcomes than their male peers after a heart attack, said the researchers, who concluded that doctors should regularly assess young women's heart attack risk.

"Compared with young men, women under 55 are less likely to have heart attacks," study author Rachel Dreyer, a research fellow in cardiovascular medicine at Yale, said in an American Heart Association news release. "But when they do occur, women are more likely to have medical problems, poorer physical and mental functioning, more chest pain and a poorer quality of life in the month leading up to their heart attack."

The study involved nearly 3,000 women and men, aged 18 to 55, who participated in an international study of heart attack patients. The researchers questioned the participants to assess their chest pain and quality of life before their heart attack.

The study also revealed that the women were more likely than the men to have other conditions linked to heart disease, such as diabetes: 40 percent of women compared to just 27 percent of the men. Moreover, 55 percent of the women were obese, compared to 48 percent of the men.

Of the women, 6 percent had a history of stroke and 6 percent had heart failure. In contrast, 3 percent of men had a history of stroke, and 2 percent had heart failure. Meanwhile, 13 percent of women had renal failure and 49 percent suffered from depression. The researchers said only 9 percent of men had renal failure and just 24 percent were depressed.

"These data suggest that young women were suffering more from their heart disease than young men prior to their heart attack," Dreyer said.

"We need to develop better methods for recognizing and treating young women with chest pain to optimize their quality of life and potentially even prevent a heart attack," Dreyer said in the news release.

"General health and disease-specific health-status assessments are valuable tools for health care providers to measure the burden of disease on patients," she said. "These should be standardized into clinical practice, much like assessments for other traditional heart disease risk factors."

The study findings were scheduled to be presented Wednesday at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Baltimore. The data and conclusions of research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about women and heart disease.

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TUESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- Children with autism see simple movement much more quickly than other children, a small new study finds.

This extreme sensitivity to motion may explain why some people with the developmental disorder are highly sensitive to noise and bright lights, and it may be linked to some of the complex social and behavioral problems associated with autism, the researchers said.

"We think of autism as a social disorder because children with this condition often struggle with social interactions, but what we sometimes neglect is that almost everything we know about the world comes from our senses," study co-lead author Duje Tadin, an assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, in New York, said in a university news release. "Abnormalities in how a person sees or hears can have a profound effect on social communication."

The study included 20 children with autism and 26 typically developing children, aged 8 to 17. All were shown video clips of moving black and white bars in order to assess how quickly they perceived motion. Overall, the children with autism detected movement twice as fast as the other children. The detection speed of the worst-performing child with autism was about equal to the average of the children without autism.

Previous research has shown that people with autism have enhanced visual abilities with still images, but this is the first study to show that they also have a heightened perception of motion, the researchers said.

The study was published May 8 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Study co-lead author Jennifer Foss-Feig is a postdoctoral fellow at the Child Study Center at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. She said in the news release: "This dramatically enhanced ability to perceive motion is a hint that the brains of individuals with autism keep responding more and more as intensity increases.

"Although this could be considered advantageous, in most circumstances if the neural response doesn't stop at the right level it could lead to sensory overload," she said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about autism.

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TUESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- Even children with low levels of lead in their blood score lower on reading-readiness tests when they begin kindergarten, a new study found.

"We now know that poorer scores on reading-readiness tests are associated with low lead levels," said researcher Patricia McLaine, director of community/public health nursing at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. "That's important, because we are very concerned about children having sufficient reading readiness when they enter kindergarten.

"For success at school, it's another indication that we need to identify children who are being exposed to lead and take action to protect them and reduce their exposure," she added.

McLaine said she believes there is no safe level of lead exposure for children. Last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered the blood lead level that would be considered concerning from 10 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dl) to 5 mcg/dl. That means many more children under the age of 5 can now be diagnosed with too much lead in their blood, a condition that has been linked to developmental problems and even a lower IQ, according to the agency.

But one expert said that is not enough, particularly given the latest findings.

"This confirms that there is really no safe level of lead," said Ruth Ann Norton, executive director of the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative. "The CDC has eliminated the term 'level of concern,' and says any level is of concern."

"Clearly, zero has to be the goal," Norton said. "We have set a false guidance. We have failed more generations of kids by not aggressively moving to zero tolerance of lead poisoning."

Another expert echoed that concern.

"The idea that there is a correlation between low lead levels and reading readiness and school performance is very concerning," said Dr. Jefry Biehler, a pediatrician at Miami Children's Hospital.

"This study brings into question what are acceptable lead levels and what lead levels actually result in developmental changes in performance in school," Biehler said. "It has always been my fear of how much lead is too much and how much is OK."

The research was published May 13 in the journal Pediatrics.

For the study, McLaine's team collected data on reading-readiness scores on more than 3,400 kindergarten children in Providence, R.I., and compared them with levels of lead in the children's blood.

They found that children with lead levels between 5 mcg/dl and 9 mcg/dl were 21 percent more likely to score below the national benchmark on the reading-readiness test. Children whose lead levels were 10 mcg/dl were 56 percent more likely to score below the national benchmark.

Moreover, reading-readiness scores dropped four and a half points for children whose lead levels were 5 mcg/dl to 9 mcg/dl and dropped 10 points for those with lead levels of 10 mcg/dl, compared with children whose blood lead levels were 0.5 mcg/dl, the researchers said.

McLaine noted, however, that there is no safe level of lead exposure. "We found effects when blood levels were above 2 [mcg/dl]," she said.

This is another reason to prevent lead poisoning altogether, McLaine added.

According to the CDC, children in at least 4 million homes in the United States are being exposed to lead. Approximately half a million U.S. children between the ages of 1 and 5 have blood lead levels above 5 mcg/dl.

Most of the exposure comes from old, chipping lead-based paint, which was banned in 1978 but is still found in public housing in urban areas and in many older homes.

More information

For more information on lead, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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TUESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental drug improved the memory and brain function in older mice with advanced symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study.

Researchers from the Salk Institute in San Diego found that the drug, known as J147, increased levels of proteins that form the connections responsible for learning and memory, and reduced levels of a protein linked to cell death in the mice.

This explains how treating the mice with J147 led to an increase in factors that are necessary for correct memory function, according to the authors of the study, which was published online May 13 in the journal Alzheimer's Research & Therapy.

The effectiveness of J147 is the result of a new drug-discovery approach developed at the Salk Institute, said David Schubert, who heads the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory.

"Our approach to screening drugs is very different from that currently used by pharmaceutical companies," Schubert said in a journal news release. "Alzheimer's disease is a complex disease associated with old age, and our goal is to make drugs like J147 that reduce the multiple toxicities associated with the disease, not just one.

"We believe that J147 is the best Alzheimer's disease drug candidate in the pipeline and will be effective if we can get it into the clinic," he added.

The researchers noted that separate studies found that J147 and another drug called donepezil (brand name Aricept) improved short-term memory and another form of memory commonly lost in Alzheimer's patients. They said that only J147 improved spatial memory, which relates to remembering information about places, such as knowing your way around your neighborhood.

Success in animal research is no guarantee of similar results in human research.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about Alzheimer's disease.

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THURSDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- About 13 percent of Americans 60 and older say they have increasing problems with thinking and memory and that they suffer growing confusion, a new report released Thursday shows.

One-third of these people add that the confusion or memory loss caused problems at work or with social activities and household chores, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The findings underscore the need to be alert for early signs of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, experts said.

"This is the first data of this kind," said report co-author Angela Deokar, a CDC public health advisor. In 2011, older adults from 21 states answered survey items on whether they'd suffered increased confusion or memory loss in the past year.

According to Deokar, signs to look out for include the following:

• Asking the same questions over and over again,
• Getting lost in familiar places,
• Not being able to follow directions,
• Becoming more confused about time, people and places.

These problems go beyond normal forgetfulness, Deokar said.

Since this is the first such report, it is not possible to see if there is an increasing trend or if these data are similar throughout the nation, she said. The survey is ongoing, however, so in a couple of years more information should be available.

The report was published in the May 10 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

People experiencing cognitive decline -- the gradual loss of the ability to think, reason and remember -- can face considerable challenges. Even so, only 35 percent of them have discussed the problem with their doctor, the researchers found.

Such conversations are important, because they make planning for the future easier as a person's mental health continues to decline, according to the report.

A dementia expert noted that these kinds of symptoms should be taken seriously.

People experiencing them "should have thorough medical exams to exclude treatable metabolic or cardiac diseases," said Dr. Sam Gandy, associate director of the Mount Sinai Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, in New York City.

Report co-author Deokar noted that people with these symptoms can reach out to the aging services network, including agencies on aging and the Alzheimer's Association.

When causes of mental decline are identified early there is the opportunity to treat reversible causes, the report authors said. If the cause isn't reversible, as with Alzheimer's disease, there is more time to develop advance directives, to enroll in clinical trials and to plan for care needs.

More information

To learn about Alzheimer's disease, visit the Alzheimer's Association.

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THURSDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- Eating vegetables that naturally contain nicotine, such as peppers and tomatoes, may reduce your risk of developing Parkinson's disease, according to a new study.

Previous research has found that smoking and other types of tobacco use are associated with a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease, and it is believed that nicotine provides the protective effect. Tobacco belongs to a plant family called Solanaceae and some plants in this family are edible sources of nicotine.

This new study included nearly 500 people who were newly diagnosed with Parkinson's and another 650 unrelated people who did not have the neurological disorder, which is typically marked by tremors and other movement problems. The study participants provided information about their tobacco use and diets.

In general, vegetable consumption had no effect on Parkinson's risk. The more vegetables from the Solanaceae plant family that people ate, however, the lower their risk of Parkinson's disease. This association was strongest for peppers, according to the study, which was published May 9 in the journal Annals of Neurology.

The apparent protection offered by Solanaceae vegetables occurred mainly in people with little or no prior use of tobacco, which contains much more nicotine than the foods included in the study.

"Our study is the first to investigate dietary nicotine and risk of developing Parkinson's disease," Dr. Susan Searles Nielsen, of the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a journal news release. "Similar to the many studies that indicate tobacco use might reduce risk of Parkinson's, our findings also suggest a protective effect from nicotine, or perhaps a similar but less toxic chemical in peppers and tobacco."

Nielsen and her colleagues recommended further studies to confirm and extend their findings, which could lead to ways to prevent Parkinson's disease.

Although the study found an association between consumption of certain nicotine-containing foods and lower risk of Parkinson's, it could not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Still, one Parkinson's expert called the study "intriguing."

"It provides further evidence of how diet can influence our susceptibility to neurological disease -- specifically Parkinson's disease," said Dr. Kelly Changizi, co-director of the Center for Neuromodulation at the Mount Sinai Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center in New York City. "Patients often ask what role nutrition plays in their disease, so it's very interesting that nicotine in vegetables such as peppers may be neuroprotective."

Another expert said more research into the role of nicotine in Parkinson's disease is already underway.

"The observation that cigarette smokers have a reduced risk for Parkinson's disease has long been known, and has raised the idea that nicotine may reduce the risk for [the illness]," said Dr. Andrew Feigin, who is investigating the illness at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y.

"A nicotine skin patch is currently being tested in patients with early Parkinson's disease," he said.

The illness occurs due to a loss of brain cells that produce a chemical messenger called dopamine. The symptoms of the disease include loss of balance, slower movement and tremors and stiffness in the face and limbs. There is currently no cure for the disorder. Nearly 1 million Americans -- and 10 million people worldwide -- have Parkinson's, according to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about Parkinson's disease.

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THURSDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- Even the minor noise that fills everyday life, from the ring of a cell phone to the conversation that follows, may have short-term effects on heart function, a small new study suggests.

In the study of 110 adults equipped with portable heart monitors, researchers found that people's heart rate tended to climb as their noise exposure increased -- even when the noise remained below 65 decibels. That's about as loud as a normal conversation or laughter.

There was also a negative impact on people's heart rate "variability" -- a measure of the heart's adaptation to what is going on around you. Greater variability in the interval between heartbeats is better. When people are relaxed, the space between heartbeats is usually a bit longer as they exhale, and shorter as they inhale.

When people are stressed, however, some of that natural variation is lost. And studies have linked lesser heart rate variability to an increased risk of heart attack.

So does all of this mean you need to wear earplugs to protect your heart? Probably not, experts say.

For any one person, the effects of everyday noise on heart function may be small, said Charlotta Eriksson, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, Sweden. Eriksson was not involved in the study.

But since we are all exposed to noise, even a minor effect on heart health could be important on the broad "population level," said Eriksson, who has studied the effects of loud traffic -- from roads or airports -- on people's blood pressure and heart function.

Research has consistently found links between loud workplaces and an increased risk of heart disease, said Dr. Wenqi Gan, a researcher at North Shore-LIJ Health System's Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, in Manhasset, N.Y.

The evidence is more mixed when it comes to "community noise," like traffic sounds, said Gan, whose own research has found a connection.

He said the mixed results may be because it's difficult to weed out the effects of community noise on individuals. You might live in a noisy section of a big city, but have good, sound-muffling windows, for example.

"And some people are more sensitive to noise than others," Gan said. If noise affects the heart by stressing people out, he said, then your personal sensitivity to it would be important.

The new findings, reported in the May issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, are based on 110 adults who wore portable devices that measured their heart activity and noise exposure during their normal daily routines.

What was "interesting," Eriksson said, is that lower-level noise seemed to curb activity in the parasympathetic nervous system -- the branch of the nervous system that acts as a "brake," lowering heart rate and relaxing the blood vessels, for example.

Louder noise, meanwhile, seemed to rev up the sympathetic nervous system -- the branch that boosts heart rate, constricts blood vessels and otherwise sends us into "fight or flight" mode.

The value of the findings is that they suggest a biological reason for why noise has been linked to ill heart effects, said Alexandra Schneider, one of the researchers in the Institute of Epidemiology at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, in Germany, who worked on the study.

"Our main focus was to find a possible mechanism that could be responsible for the observed health effects in other studies," Schneider said.

The study was not designed to offer people advice on how much noise is "bad" for their hearts, she said.

Gan agreed. "This study is a first step in exploring the underlying biological mechanisms for the association between noise exposure and cardiovascular disease," he said. "We need more studies like this."

A big question, said study author Schneider, is whether the short-term effects of noise, repeated over time, ultimately affect heart health -- particularly for people who already have chronic medical conditions.

Although the study tied increased noise exposure to a rise in heart rate, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more information on noise pollution.

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WEDNESDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- Elevated blood sugar levels may increase a person's risk for Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study.

Previous research has suggested that diabetes may be a risk factor for Alzheimer's, but University of Arizona researchers wanted to examine if high blood sugar levels in people without diabetes may also increase the chances of developing Alzheimer's.

The study included 124 people, aged 47 to 68, who were diabetes-free and had normal brain function, but did have a family history of Alzheimer's. The participants underwent scans that revealed metabolic activity in the brain.

People with Alzheimer's disease show reduced brain metabolism in certain brain regions. A similar pattern of lower metabolism in these same brain regions was seen in study participants with high blood sugar levels.

Study author Christine Burns, a pre-doctoral student in psychology, said she hopes the findings will be useful in ongoing work designed to develop early Alzheimer's interventions.

"A lot of valuable research is focused on treatment and slowing decline in Alzheimer's patients," she said. "I'm interested in complementing this work with interventions that can be implemented earlier on, perhaps at middle age."

The findings were published in the journal Neurology.

About 5 percent of Americans aged 65 to 74 have Alzheimer's, and nearly half of those aged 85 and older may have the progressive brain disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Known factors that contribute to the disease include age and genetics, but it is also believed that high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes may increase risk.

The study found an association between Alzheimer's disease and high blood sugar. It didn't show a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about Alzheimer's risk factors and prevention.

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WEDNESDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- A baseball pitched at more than 90 miles per hour or a tennis ball swatted at even greater speeds leaves opponents mere split-seconds to ready themselves for a savvy return. So how can the human brain track such small objects traveling at such high speeds?

New research suggests that the brain can predict and map the path of an oncoming object faster than it processes incoming visual information.

"For the first time, we can see this sophisticated prediction mechanism at work in the human brain," study lead author Gerrit Maus, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a university news release.

The researchers said it can take one-tenth of a second for the brain to process what the eye sees. That means, for example, that by the time the brain "catches up" with incoming visual information, a tennis ball moving toward a person at 120 miles per hour would already have moved 15 feet closer. If people couldn't compensate for this, they'd be hit by oncoming objects much more frequently than they are, the researchers said.

To make up for this delay, the brain appears to engage a "prediction mechanism" that pushes oncoming objects a bit forward in their expected trajectory, according to the new study.

"The image that hits the eye and then is processed by the brain is not in sync with the real world, but the brain is clever enough to compensate for that," Maus said. "What we perceive doesn't necessarily have that much to do with the real world, but it is what we need to know to interact with the real world."

Maus's team said the findings provide deeper understanding of how people anticipate the trajectory of moving objects. Besides giving us a better understanding of how top athletes perform so well, the new insight could help doctors diagnose and treat many disorders, including those that impair motion perception.

The study involved six people who underwent functional MRI scans, in which brain activity is tracked in real time. During the scans, they viewed a two-part visual illusion in which they saw brief flashes shifting in the direction of motion, called the "flash-drag effect."

Using this technology, the researchers were able to pinpoint a region of the brain, called V5, that makes calculations to compensate for people's delayed visual-processing abilities.

"[The brain] engages its prediction mechanism to compensate for processing delays," Maus said. "Now, not only can we see the outcome of prediction in area V5, but we can also show that it is causally involved in enabling us to see objects accurately in predicted positions."

The study's authors said their findings coincide with the Obama Administration's push to create a Brain Activity Map Initiative, which will further advance the creation of a roadmap of human brain circuits.

The study was published May 8 in the journal Neuron.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke provides more information on the human brain.

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WEDNESDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- Women who come down with the flu during pregnancy may be at increased risk of having a child who develops bipolar disorder, a new study suggests.

The chance of a child eventually developing the mental health disorder was nearly four times higher when comparing mothers-to-be who had the flu to those who didn't, the researchers reported.

"We don't fully understand this," said study co-author Dr. Alan Brown. "The best guess is it's an inflammatory response. It could also be a result of fever," he noted.

"Mothers should stay away from people who have the flu," said Brown, a professor of clinical psychiatry and clinical epidemiology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City.

However, he added, regarding the new findings, "women should not be greatly concerned, because a fourfold increase is pretty high from an epidemiological standpoint, but still the vast majority of the offspring did not get bipolar disorder."

Brown explained that "the risk of bipolar disorder in the population is about 1 percent, so if it's increased fourfold that would make it a 4 percent risk." Moreover, the researchers only looked at one risk factor for bipolar disorder, not all risk factors, which could skew these results, he noted.

The report was published in the May 8 online edition of JAMA Psychiatry.

Bipolar disorder, also called manic-depressive illness, causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels and the ability to carry out routine tasks. Bipolar disorder can be treated, and people with this illness can lead full and productive lives, according to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.

The condition often develops in the late teens or early adult years. Some people have their first symptoms during childhood, while others may develop symptoms as adults, the agency noted.

For the study, researchers at Columbia University and Kaiser Permanente identified cases of bipolar disorder by database linkages of a Northern California health plan and a county health care system, along with data from a mailed survey.

Participants were mothers who gave birth between 1959 and 1966 and their offspring. Researchers found 92 cases of bipolar disorder and compared them with 722 people matched in terms of occurrence of maternal influenza during pregnancy.

While the new study found an association of pregnant women getting the flu and a higher risk of bipolar disorder in their offspring, it didn't establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

"There is no understanding of the causal factors of this," said Dr. Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He was not involved with the study.

"Pregnancy itself puts extra stress on women in general," he pointed out. "Pregnancy also affects the immune system and increases the risk of getting the flu."

Flu during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage, premature birth and low birth weight infants, Manevitz said.

Pregnant women should get a flu shot, both Manevitz and Brown suggested.

Other studies have shown a similar association between flu during pregnancy and the child's risk for autism and schizophrenia -- now there is this association with bipolar disorder, Manevitz said. "This doesn't give us any causal connection," he emphasized.

More information

To learn more about bipolar disorder, visit the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.

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MONDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Families with exceptional longevity also appear to have later onset of dementia, a new study suggests.

Ultimately, the same percentage of people in families surviving to 90 and beyond are prey to Alzheimer's disease as others, but the progressive brain disorder tends to develop later in life, the researchers say.

"The goal of the study was to determine whether or not members of exceptionally long-lived families are protected against cognitive [mental] impairment consistent with Alzheimer's disease," said lead researcher Stephanie Cosentino, an assistant professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

The answer: Yes, except for the oldest of the old.

Although the reason for the delayed onset of dementia in the very old isn't clear, Cosentino said "there may be specific genetic pathways related to preserved cognition in these families." Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia among the elderly.

Cosentino's team followed more than 1,800 participants (1,510 family members and 360 spouses as "controls") in the U.S.-Danish Long Life Family Study, which is evaluating genetic and non-genetic factors associated with extreme longevity.

For the current report, published online May 6 in JAMA Neurology, they looked at the onset of Alzheimer's disease among blood relatives within long-living families and compared that with similar data on their spouses.

Older family members, average age 88, had similar rates of mental decline as their spouses, Cosentino found. However, sons and daughters, average age 70, of exceptionally long-lived people had less than half the risk of Alzheimer's disease than their similarly aged spouses, she said.

"Overall, a higher proportion of family members than their spouses were dementia-free until age 90," Cosentino said. "After 95 years of age, however, exceptionally long-lived individuals had a high prevalence of dementia, pointing to a delayed onset of mental impairment in families with exceptional longevity."

An important component of achieving extreme old age is the delayed onset of dementia, Cosentino said. About 5.4 million Americans are estimated to have Alzheimer's disease, most of them older than 65 years.

Another expert said other studies have shown similar protection against heart disease and cancer in long-lived families.

"This finding suggests that factors that protect the cardiovascular system and perhaps factors that ward off cancer could be at work in the brain to prevent Alzheimer's," said Dr. Sam Gandy, associate director of the Mount Sinai Alzheimer's Disease Research Center in New York City.

This new study dovetails perfectly with papers showing the essential role of inflammation in Alzheimer's dementia, Gandy said. "And some of the factors that cause Alzheimer's . . . share enormous similarity with blood vessel inflammatory diseases that probably contribute to cardiovascular disease and cancer," he said.

Overall, the study found that 38.5 percent of participants developed Alzheimer's disease. The risk was slightly reduced in men and women from long-lived families compared with their husbands or wives.

Moreover, the risk was further reduced among their sons and daughters, but did not carry over to nieces and nephews, the researchers found.

More information

For more information on Alzheimer's disease, visit the Alzheimer's Association.

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MONDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly one-fifth of children and teens at risk for suicide say there are guns in their homes, and many know how to get their hands on both the guns and the bullets, a new study of U.S. emergency room patients found.

It included 524 patients, aged 10 to 21, who were seen for physical or mental health issues at three pediatric emergency departments. They were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to screen for suicide risk.

About 29 percent (151) of the patients were found to be at risk for suicide, and 17 percent of them said there were guns in or around their home. Of those who were at risk for suicide and reported guns in the home, 31 percent knew how to get the guns, 31 percent knew how to get bullets and 15 percent knew how to get both the guns and the bullets.

The findings are scheduled for Monday presentation at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

"This study highlights the importance of parents understanding the risks of having guns in their homes," study co-author and youth suicide expert Jeffrey Bridge said in an American Academy of Pediatrics news release.

"Being at risk for suicide and having access to firearms is a volatile mix. These conversations need to take place in the ED with families of children at risk for suicide," said Bridge, principal investigator at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 24 in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Guns are used by nearly half of young people who commit suicide.

"While many youths who kill themselves have mental health disorders, up to 40 percent of youths who kill themselves have no known mental illness," Bridge said. "Therefore, it is important to screen all children and adolescents for suicide, regardless of the reason they are visiting the ED."

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more about teen suicide.

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