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Theres no positive side to developing skin cancer, but the latest research ties certain forms of the disease to a reduced risk of dementia.
Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York found that people who have skin cancer may be less likely to develop Alzheimers disease.
It's by far the largest study to look at this, and researchers say the conclusion makes sense. Working tends to keep people physically active, socially connected and mentally challenged all things known to help prevent mental decline. "For each additional year of work, the risk of getting dementia is reduced by 3.2 percent," said Carole Dufouil, a scientist at INSERM, the French government's health research agency. She led the study and gave results Monday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Boston.
About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's 1 in 9 people aged 65 and over. What causes the mind-robbing disease isn't known and there is no cure or any treatments that slow its progression. France has had some of the best Alzheimer's research in the world, partly because its former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, made it a priority. The country also has detailed health records on self-employed people who pay into a Medicare-like health system.
Researchers used these records on more than 429,000 workers, most of whom were shopkeepers or craftsmen such as bakers and woodworkers. They were 74 on average and had been retired for an average of 12 years. Nearly 3 percent had developed dementia but the risk of this was lower for each year of age at retirement. Someone who retired at 65 had about a 15 percent lower risk of developing dementia compared to someone retiring at 60, after other factors that affect those odds were taken into account, Dufouil said.
To rule out the possibility that mental decline may have led people to retire earlier, researchers did analyses that eliminated people who developed dementia within 5 years of retirement, and within 10 years of it. "The trend is exactly the same," suggesting that work was having an effect on cognition, not the other way around, Dufouil said. France mandates retirement in various jobs civil servants must retire by 65, she said. The new study suggests "people should work as long as they want" because it may have health benefits, she said.
More Study: Later retirement may help prevent dementia
Cancer Research UK said each year, the most serious type of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, kills 1,300 men and 900 women, a gap expected to widen. A reason could be men delaying seeking help, but biology may also play a part. Prof Julia Newton-Bishop, a Cancer Research UK dermatologist, suspects women have stronger immune systems. German researchers have already identified a gene that appears to make men, but not women, more susceptible to melanoma.
Prof Newton-Bishop, from the University of Leeds, said: "Research has suggested the difference between the sexes could be in part because men are more likely to be diagnosed when melanoma is at a more advanced stage. "But there also seem to be strong biological reasons behind the differences, and we're working on research to better understand why men and women's bodies deal with their melanomas in different ways. "Stage for stage, men do less well with this cancer so there's something very important that this is telling us about how the body deals it. "We think it is something to do with the immune system rather than hormones because pre- and post-menopausal fare the same."
Delayed diagnosis
Another concern is late diagnosis. Men, unlike women, more often develop the cancer on their back rather than arms and legs which may make it more difficult for them to spot. "Asking your partner to check your back is a good idea," said Prof Newton-Bishop. Malignant melanoma death rates have been increasing in the UK since the early 1970s, largely because more people are developing the disease. Male incidence rates are now more than five times higher than they were 30 years ago - rising from 2.7 per 100,000 to 17.2 per 100,000.
Getting too much sun and using sun beds increases the risk of this largely preventable disease. To protect their skin, people are advised to use a sunscreen with at least SPF15 and good UVA protection - the higher the star rating, the better - and to be aware of changes in the skin, including a new growth or a spot or mole that itches, hurts, bleeds or will not heal. Treatment is more likely to be successful if melanoma is spotted early.
BBC News - Men 'more vulnerable' to skin cancer
Wednesday's report offers evidence that age-related memory loss really is a distinct condition from pre-Alzheimer's and offers a hint that what we now consider the normal forgetfulness of old age might eventually be treatable. Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center examined brains, young and old ones, donated from people who died without signs of neurologic disease. They discovered that a certain gene in a specific part of the hippocampus, the brain's memory center, quits working properly in older people. It produces less of a key protein. That section of the brain, called the dentate gyrus, has long been suspected of being especially vulnerable to aging. Importantly, it's a different neural neighborhood than where Alzheimer's begins to form.
But it's circumstantial evidence that having less of that protein, named RbAp48, affects memory loss in older adults. So the researchers took a closer look at mice, which become forgetful as they age in much the same way that people do. Sure enough, cutting levels of the protein made healthy young rodents lose their way in mazes and perform worse on other memory tasks just like old mice naturally do. More intriguing, the memory loss was reversible: Boosting the protein made forgetful old mice as sharp as the youngsters again, the researchers reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine. "It's the best evidence so far" that age-related memory loss isn't the same as early Alzheimer's, said Nobel laureate Dr. Eric Kandel, who led the Columbia University team.
And since some people make it to 100 without showing much of a cognitive slowdown, the work begs another question: "Is that normal aging, or is it a deterioration that we're allowing to occur?" Kandel said. "As we want to live longer and stay engaged in a cognitively complex world, I think even mild age-related memory decline is meaningful," added Columbia neurologist Dr. Scott Small, a senior author of the study. "It opens up a whole avenue of investigation to now try to identify interventions." This is early-stage research that will require years of additional work to confirm, cautioned Dr. Molly Wagster of the National Institute on Aging, who wasn't involved with the report. But Wagster said the findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting "that we're not all on the road to Alzheimer's disease" after we pass a certain age.
For example, other researchers have found that connections between neurons in other parts of the brain weaken with normal aging, making it harder but not impossible to retrieve memories. In contrast, Alzheimer's kills neurons. How does Wednesday's research fit? Many pathways make up a smoothly functioning memory, and that protein plays a role in turning a short-term memory like where you left those car keys into a longer-term one, Kandel explained. Some good news: Scientists already know that exercise makes the dentate gyrus that age-targeted spot in the hippocampus function better, Small said. He's also studying if nutrition might make a difference.
Scientists find clue to age-related memory loss
