DENTAL TRIBUNE Middle East & Africa Edition Industry News 13 "If we can determine the best set of electromagnetic parameters to effectively prevent beta-amyloid aggregation and remove pre-existing beta amyloid deposits from the brain, this technology could be quickly translated to human benefit against Alzheimer's disease," said USF professor Chuanhai Cao. Around 36 million people will be living with dementia this year, according to international umbrella group Alzheimer's Disease International. DT Mobile phones may halt, reverse Alzheimer's: study WASHINGTON - Long suspected of causing brain tumors, mobile phones are now being eyed as key allies in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, US researchers said in a study. Researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) found, to their surprise, that 96 mice they zapped twice daily for an hour each time with electromagnetic waves similar to those generated by US mobile (cellular) phones benefited from the exposure. Older mice saw deposits of betaamyloid -- a protein fragment that accumulates in the brain of Alzheimer's sufferers to form the disease's signature plaques -wiped out and their memories improved after long-term exposure to mobile phones, the study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease showed. Young adult mice with no apparent signs of memory impairment were protected against Alzheimer's disease after several months' exposure to the phone waves, and the memories of normal mice with no genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's disease were boosted after exposure to the electromagnetic waves. No one was more surprised by the results than the researchers themselves, who had embarked on the tests several years ago, convinced they would show "that the electromagnetic fields from a cell phone would be deleterious to Alzheimer's mice," lead author Gary Arendash, a USF professor, told AFP. "When we got our initial results showing a beneficial effect, I thought, 'Give it a few more months and it will get bad for them.' "It never got bad. We just kept getting these beneficial effects in both the Alzheimer's and normal mice," Arendash said. It took several months of exposure before the benefits were seen in mice, and that would be the equivalent of many years in humans, Arendash said. But William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, said the study was "very preliminary" and warned against self-medicating by over-using a cell phone. "No one should feel they are being protected from Alzheimer's, dementia, cognitive decline by using their cell phones based on this study," Thies said in a statement. The study "needs to be replicated in animals before we begin to even consider trying it in people, as animal models of Alzheimer's and people with the disease are very different," he said. Arenbach called the Alzheimer’s Association reaction disappointing and "so negative about a new research area of neuroscience that could offer real benefits against the disease in the future -- especially since a new therapeutic approach is desperately needed and long overdue." AD DT Page 12 • Raising the threshold and indexing the threshold to medical inflation. • Replacing the single family coverage thresholds with a per-covered-person threshold, a fairer approach to plan cost allocation. Many House Democrats are opposed to any health care benefits tax, and at least 190 representatives signed a letter opposing such a tax. “The view of many progressives is that the tax is unacceptable,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, told The New York Times. “It would affect a lot of middle-income people.” “The health care reform debate has never centered on dental, vision and other supplemental benefits,” said James A. Klein, president of the American Benefits Council. “Those valuable benefits have only been included in the calculation of the excise tax to raise revenue. Several modifications are needed to improve the excise tax provision, including not applying the tax to these important supplemental benefits.” “For millions of patients and consumers, most of whom are middle-and low-income working Americans, the excise tax is unfair and punitive, leading to reduced health care services,” said Louise Novotny, research director at Communications Workers of America. DT