6. Diabetes Rates Are Falling Substantially in the U.S.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in December the number of new cases of the disease has fallen by nearly 20% in the last seven years,
Americans are drinking 20% less soda than in 1998, the number of people exercising regularly has increased by 17% since 2001, and children are consuming 5.5% fewer calories on average than they did in the 1990s. Another impressive trend: childhood obesity rates have plummeted by more than 40% over the last decade.
5. Discovery Promises New Treatments, Possible Prevention of Alzheimer’s
Australian scientists solved the puzzle of how Alzheimer’s disease destroys connections in the brain. Their discovery of a battle between two proteins opens the door for new treatments and a possible cure or prevention of the most debilitating form of dementia.
4. Breakthrough Can Deliver Medicine to the Brain for the First Time
Doctors in Canada broke the so-called “blood-brain barrier” for the first time. They developed a method for penetrating the protective layer of the brain to allow medicine to be delivered directly to deadly tumors through the blood stream. The breakthrough allows easier and far more effective treatment of cancer, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimers.
