Autopsies shine light on dementia

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Subjects of decade-long studies continue to aid researchers in death

Star Bulletin

By Helen Altonn

Investigators led by Dr. Lon White of the Pacific Health Research Institute have done about 800 autopsies on the men, recruited in 1965 for a study of heart disease and stroke, at Kuakini Medical Center with family permission.

The Honolulu-Asia Aging Study was expanded over the years with research and significant discoveries on diseases associated with aging. The program has received more than $72 million in federal funds since the 1960s.

Only about 400 of the original 8,006 men are still living. Kuakini is receiving $1.1 million in federal funds to continue the research.

The men in the study group were born from 1900 to 1919 and identified through World War II Selective Service registration files. The youngest now living is 90, White said.

Pacific Health Research Institute doctors and associates have followed the men, assessing their cognitive, motor and sensory functions; lifestyle; health; and illnesses. Now, as they do autopsies, White said, "we are in a unique position to understand the causes and meanings of those changes we see in the brain."

With the volunteers who "signed onto a lifetime study" 44 years ago, White said the team is striving for basic understanding to prevent or slow the progression of dementia and "turn around those we could turn around."

Fewer than six studies worldwide are looking intensely at dementia and Alzheimer's disease. The Honolulu study has been a leader with some findings "revolutionizing the way people think about these diseases," White said.

"We have been able to correct a huge number of important misunderstandings related to the causes of dementia," he said, adding that "loss of cognition late in life is a whole lot more complicated than we used to think it was."

He said the researchers found processes contributing to dementia that have been attributed incorrectly to Alzheimer's disease.

For example, they have found changes in tiny arteries of the brain produced by a vascular disease, molecular changes often seen in Parkinson's disease in the cerebral cortex, which has a role in memory, and loss of neurons in the area of the brain associated with memory.

While the researchers are interested in the causes of death, White said, "We're more interested in the value of what we can learn from these for the rest of the world and future of people."

He said they are.....read all of Autopsies shine light on dementia