Higher vitamin D dietary intake is associated with lower risk of alzheimer's disease: a 7-year follow-up

BACKGROUND: Hypovitaminosis D is associated with cognitive decline among older adults. The relationship between vitamin D intakes and cognitive decline is not well understood. Our objective was to determine whether the dietary intake of vitamin D was an independent predictor of the onset of dementia within 7 years among women aged 75 years and older.METHODS: Four hundred and ninety-eight community-dwelling women (mean, 79.8 3.8 years) free of vitamin D supplements from the EPIDemiology of OSteoporosis Toulouse cohort study were divided into three groups according to the onset of dementia within 7 years (ie, no dementia, Alzheimer\u27s disease [AD], or other dementias). Baseline vitamin D dietary intakes were estimated from self-administered food frequency questionnaire. Age, body mass index, initial cognitive performance, education level, physical activity, sun exposure, disability, number of chronic diseases, hypertension, depression, use of psychoactive drugs, and baseline season were considered as potential confounders. RESULTS: Women who developed AD (n = 70) had lower baseline vitamin D intakes (mean, 50.3 19.3 mug/wk) than nondemented (n = 361; mean intake = 59.0 29.9 mug/wk, p = .027) or those who developed other dementias (n = 67; mean intake = 63.6 38.1 mug/wk, p = .010). There was no difference between other dementias and no dementia (p = .247). Baseline vitamin D dietary intakes were associated with the onset of AD (adjusted odds ratio = 0.99 [95% confidence interval = 0.98-0.99], p = .041) but not with other dementias (p = .071). Being in the highest quintile of vitamin D dietary intakes was associated with a lower risk of AD compared with the lower 4 quintiles combined (adjusted odds ratio = 0.23 [95% confidence interval = 0.08-0.67], p = .007). CONCLUSIONS: Higher vitamin D dietary intake was associated with a lower risk of developing AD among older women

Efficient and perfect state transfer in quantum chains

We present a communication protocol for chains of permanently coupled qubits which achieves perfect quantum state transfer and which is efficient with respect to the number chains employed in the scheme. The system consists of $M$ uncoupled identical quantum chains. Local control (gates, measurements) is only allowed at the sending/receiving end of the chains. Under a quite general hypothesis on the interaction Hamiltonian of the qubits a theorem is proved which shows that the receiver is able to asymptotically recover the messages by repetitive monitoring of his qubits.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; new material adde

The use of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers to measure change in neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease clinical trials

INTRODUCTION: All recent phase 3 trials of potentially disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) have so far failed. Potential reasons include enrolling subjects whose disease is too advanced or who do not have AD pathology, or simply incorrect drug targets. The goal of disease-modifying AD trials is to halt the progress of neuronal damage and death and this can be assessed in vivo using cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers. AREAS COVERED: The authors conducted a literature search of the use of CSF biomarkers in disease-modifying AD clinical trials using PubMed. The authors show that CSF biomarkers have only sparsely been used as outcome measures, and where they have, only in small subsets of patients. No clinical trials have yet showed any substantial effects on CSF biomarkers of neurodegeneration. EXPERT COMMENTARY: In future trials, the authors advocate that CSF biomarkers be used more extensively to optimize the chance of detecting positive drug effects. This includes the identification of potential AD patients – already in the early prodromal stage – for inclusion, for stratification, as readout i.e. proximity markers for changes in axonal/neurodegeneration between treatment and placebo groups – this also enables proof of principle verification in the discovery/dose finding phase, and for monitoring of side effects

Saturated Ferromagnetism and Magnetization Deficit in Optimally Annealed (Ga,Mn)As Epilayers

We examine the Mn concentration dependence of the electronic and magnetic properties of optimally annealed Ga1-xMnxAs epilayers for 1.35% < x < 8.3%. The Curie temperature (Tc), conductivity, and exchange energy increase with Mn concentration up to x ~ 0.05, but are almost constant for larger x, with Tc ~ 110 K. The ferromagnetic moment per Mn ion decreases monotonically with increasing x, implying that an increasing fraction of the Mn spins do not participate in the ferromagnetism. By contrast, the derived domain wall thickness, an important parameter for device design, remains surprisingly constant.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted for Rapid Communication in Phys Rev

Global Standards in Action: Insights from Anti-Money Laundering Regulation

As organizations have come under the increasing influence of global rules of all sorts, organization scholars have started studying the dynamics of global regulation. The purpose of this article is to identify and evaluate the contribution to this interdisciplinary field by the ‘Stockholm Centre for Organisational Research’. The latter’s key proposition is that while global regulation often consists of voluntary best practice rules it can nevertheless become highly influential under certain conditions. We assess how innovative this approach is using as a benchmark the state of the art in another field of relevance to the study of global regulation, i.e. ‘International Relations’. Our discussion is primarily theoretical but we draw on the case of global anti-money laundering regulation to illustrate our arguments and for inspirations of how to further elaborate the approach

The Influence of Orthopedic Surgery on Circulating Metabolite Levels, and their Associations with the Incidence of Postoperative Delirium

The mechanisms underlying the occurrence of postoperative delirium development are unclear and measurement of plasma metabolites may improve understanding of its causes. Participants (n = 54) matched for age and gender were sampled from an observational cohort study investigating postoperative delirium. Participants were ≥65 years without a diagnosis of dementia and presented for primary elective hip or knee arthroplasty. Plasma samples collected pre-and postoperatively were grouped as either control (n = 26, aged: 75.8 ± 5.2) or delirium (n = 28, aged: 76.2 ± 5.7). Widespread changes in plasma metabolite levels occurred following surgery. The only metabolites significantly differing between corresponding control and delirium samples were ornithine and spermine. In delirium cases, ornithine was 17.6% higher preoperatively, and spermine was 12.0% higher postoperatively. Changes were not associated with various perioperative factors. In binary logistic regression modeling, these two metabolites did not confer a significantly increased risk of delirium. These findings support the hypothesis that disturbed polyamine metabolism is an underlying factor in delirium that warrants further investigation