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Thursday, November 21. 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Estrogen might help curb Alzheimer's
Hormone improves memory, study finds
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Treatment with estrogen dramatically improved the memory and concentration of elderly women with Alzheimer's disease, researchers reported yesterday.
Experts called the findings encouraging but said the results needed to be verified in larger trials.
The experiment, conducted at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System in Tacoma, Wash., is the first controlled study among Alzheimer's patients to evaluate the effects of estrogen on the mind-destroying disease. Earlier, noncontrolled studies suggested
that the hormone could protect against developing Alzheimer's.
"Women on estrogen had a significantly improved ability to remember things," said Sanjay Asthana, physician and lead author of the study. Results were presented yesterday at the national meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
Asthana said the study had involved 12 women in their 70s, all with clinically diagnosed mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.
All of the women received drug-delivery skin patches, six with estrogen, the others with a placebo preparation. The identity of the women receiving estrogen was not disclosed to treating physicians.
"The effect of the estrogen was rapid," Asthana said. "Within a week there was improvement."
Throughout the eight-week trial, the women received standard neu
rological and psychological tests to detect changes.
The women on estrogen had memory test scores two to two and a half times greater than their scores before taking the drug and attention test scores almost doubled, Asthana said.
Loss of memory and attention span are two of the cognitive functions most severely affected by Alzheimer's, a disease that affects about 4 million Americans. It progressively destroys the mind, eventually killing the victim. There is no proven cause or cure.
Asthana said in his study that the estrogen effect was dose-related, meaning that the patients who absorbed more of the hormone from the patches improved the most. The memory and attention improvements gradually faded after the experiment ended, he said.
Several studies have shown that estrogen tends to slow the onset of Alzheimer's symptoms. Three studies concluded that the hormone reduces the risk of the disease by up to 40 percent in postmenopausal women.
Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis reported preliminary results last year suggesting that estrogen pills improved the memory of 10 women with Alzheimer's disease.
Asthana said that his study was too small to be conclusive but that it gave strong support for larger, more extensive tests among Alzheimer's patients.
Bruce McEwen, a physician and brain researcher at Rockefeller University in New York, said he was encouraged by the study. Combined with other studies, Asthana's study shows a consistent pattern
suggesting that estrogen can have a strong influence on the disease, McEwen said.
"This research is very encouraging," said Zavern Khachaturian of the Alzheimer's Association and the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute. But he cautioned: "We cannot yet draw any conclusions from so small a sample. These results must be confirmed in a larger group."
Estrogen is known primarily as a female hormone, and researchers have learned it has many functions. In women of childbearing age, estrogen protects against heart disease and bone loss.
In the brain, estrogen appears to increase the action of CREB, a gene that plays a critical role in memory, a function so important that it apparently occurs in both men and women. Testosterone, a male hormone, is converted to estrogen for use in the male brain. The production of testosterone throughout men's lives may account for the fact that Alzheimer's is much less common among men than among women, whose estrogen levels drop after menopause.
Estrogen replacement therapy became used most often to protect post-menopausal women from osteoporosis, the brittle-bone disease.
The therapy since has been found to improve the mental performance of normal, healthy older women, to protect against heart attack and to lower the risks of some types of cancer.
However, estrogen replacement is not risk-free. Studies have shown that the therapy can increase slightly the risk of breast cancer and of developing blood clots.
Police discover bomb at APEC meeting site
Explosives raise new concerns about terrorism
The Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines — Five days before President Clinton and 17 other world leaders plan to meet in the Philippines, police discovered a pipe bomb, hand grenades and a timing device in two of the nation's most sensitive places: the Manila airport and the chief site for the leaders' summit.
The discovery of the devices yesterday overshadowed meetings of lower-level officials in advance of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. At one session, the United States failed to win full endorsement for a proposal to abolish tariffs on computers and other information technology products.
Police at the Manila airport found a travel bag in the arrival area that contained several grenades and a timing device, said Mutalib Abduladjid, an airport security guard. Another grenade was found inside the airport at a hotel transportation desk.
Earlier in the day, a bomb was discovered by a pay phone a few hundred feet from the main gate of Subic Bay Freeport, a former U.S. naval base west of Manila where summit meetings will be held.
A Subic Bay official said the bomb was part of a drill few people were told about — including himself. It was conducted by the Philippine
Presidential Security Group to test security preparations and the bomb did not have a blasting cap, said Richard Gordon, Subic Bay metropolitan authority chairman.
However, Air Force Capt. Ruben Carandang, who is assigned to the Presidential Security Group at Subic Bay, said he was unaware of a bomb drill.
"We don't conduct bomb drills because it will scare people," he said.
Although none of the explosives went off, the incidents raised new concerns about terrorism and safety precautions for the APEC meetings in the capital and at the former base, now an industrial and tourist center.
Philippine authorities have assembled a 26,000-member security force to protect Clinton, Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the other leaders.
Any terrorist attack could be disastrous for the Philippine government's hope of using APEC to convey to the world that the country is stable and a safe investment site.
Officials tried to minimize the discoveries, saying they showed security preparations were working.
Still, the incidents diverted attention from the daylong talks on the U.S. proposal, which calls for zero tariffs on computers and other information technology products all around the world by 2000.
Japan strongly backed the American proposal, but others in the trade group, which includes countries from Canada, Chile and Australia to Korea, weren't as effusive.
An endorsement by APEC would
give the United States' plan greater weight when economic, trade and foreign ministers of some 150 countries meet next month at the World Trade Organization's inaugural meeting in Singapore.
But Taiwan Economic Affairs Minister Wang Chi-kang said his government would like to see some items removed from the proposal, including manufacturing and testing machinery for semiconductors.
Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz was even more negative. Asked if APEC members were heading for an agreement, she said: "Definitely not."
In a related development, foreign ministers meeting on APEC's sidelines decided they will not rush to make Burma an association of Southeast Asian Nations member, rebuffing Malaysia's efforts.
At least two other ASEAN members, the Philippines and Thailand, appear uneasy about embracing Burma too quickly when Burma's military rulers have been suppressing democratic forces at home.
The summit also will provide a setting for a meeting between Clinton and his Chinese counterpart. The two have not exchanged visits to each other's capitals because of disputes over trade and human rights, so APEC became a handy neutral site to meet.
APEC's membership consists of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.
United States vetoes U.N.election results
The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS — Boutros Boutros-Ghali's refusal to bow out after the United States vetoed his re-election as U.N. secretary-general comes as no surprise to those who know him.
On Tuesday, the United States cast the lone vote against Boutros-Ghali in the 15-member Security Council. But the 74-year-old Egyptian diplomat said he would remain a candidate, as U.N. rules permit.
African diplomats met yesterday on whether to continue supporting him. Council President Nugroho Wisnumurti said he would schedule another vote after the Africans decide.
Boutros-Ghali has a reputation as a fighter, a proud, hard-headed aristocrat willing to take unpopular stands when he believes principles are at stake.
In 1977, he accepted the post of acting foreign minister of Egypt after the incumbent resigned and the deputy minister refused the job to protest the late President Anwar Sadat's plan to visit Jerusalem.
At a time when militant Arab states denounced Sadat as a traitor, Boutros-Ghali stuck by his commitment to peace and played a key role in the negotiations that produced the Camp David accords in 1978 and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty a year later.
pushover. The Israelis considered him a hawk and an obstructionist.
Egyptian diplomats and commentators believed he prevented the mercurial Sadat from making concessions too quickly.
Boutros-Ghali prefers to work in the background, negotiating behind closed doors rather than in the media.
But Boutros-Ghali was no
He rarely attends after-hours social functions, instead preferring to retire to his U.N.-owned apartment on Manhattan's East Side to read reports and briefing papers.
Those who have known Boutros-Ghali for years believe his character was shaped by his origins.
His family was one of the wealthiest in Egypt.
But the family was Coptic Christian in a largely Muslim society, and his wife, Lea, is of Jewish origins.
As a result, he was never appointed foreign minister of Egypt, where key positions are reserved for Muslims.
In an earlier time when Christians had more power, his grandfather, Boutros Ghali Pasha, served as prime minister of Egypt from 1908 until he was assassinated in 1910 for supporting extended European control of the Suez Canal.
between Christians and Muslims for years.
The assassin was a Muslim and the killing soured relations
boutros-Ghali graduated from Cairo University in 1946. After earning his Ph.D. at the University of Paris, he returned to Cairo and taught international law until joining the government in 1977.
He was elected secretary-general in December 1990 after the council bowed to African demands that an African head the organization.
Previous U.N. chiefs had come from Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Since then, the independent-minded Boutros-Ghali often has butted heads with the United States and other Western countries, which dominate the United Nations.
Boutros-Ghali said he felt that the United Nations ignored crises in Africa in favor of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, which he once branded a "rich man's war."
His plans for expanding the United Nations in the post-Cold War era clashed with Washington's interest in pursuing its own policy goals.
He initially resisted U.S. demands for U.N. reforms, such as a "zero-growth" budget and staff reductions, although he ultimately accepted them. That led to U.S. allegations that new leadership was needed to carry the United Nations into the 21st century.
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Bring your calendar, bring a friend and bring your Jayhawk spirit.
Student Alumni Association meeting TONIGHT at 7pm Adams Alumni Center
The University of Kansas School of Fine Arts Department of Music & Dance presents the
University Dance Company
with Cohan/Suzeau and works by Claire Porter, Guest Artist Jerel Hilding Willie Lenoir Joan Stone
8p.m.
November
21 & 22, 1996
Lied Center
General admission tickets on sale in the KU box offices:
Murphy Hall, 864-3982; Lied Center, 864-ARTS; SUA office,
864-3477; $6 public, $4 students and senior citizens.
Both VISA and Mastercard accepted for phone reservations.
Partially funded by the KU Student Senate Activity Fee.
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