Philadelphia

Drug helps slow onset of Alzheimer’s

In the first clinical trial of what many consider will be the Holy Grail of Alzheimer’s research — treating people at risk for the disease before they actually get it — a drug temporarily slowed the onset of the disease, according to research presented Sunday.

Although the benefit was modest, researchers say the trial now opens the door to using existing drugs as well as medications that are expected to be approved in the near future to treat healthy people who are at high risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The study involved 769 people with a condition known as mild cognitive impairment. The results of the trial were reported at the ninth International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders.

People in the trial were given either a placebo, vitamin E or the Alzheimer’s drug donepezil.

While some observational studies suggest vitamin E may help prevent the disease, it was found to have no effect on the patients in the trial.

Donepezil appeared to have a modest effect in that it delayed the progression to Alzheimer’s by about six months. However, after about two years, the drug’s benefit wore off.

New Mexico

Nuclear security chief visits Los Alamos lab

The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration visited Los Alamos National Laboratory on Sunday to oversee the investigation into security lapses at the lab.

Linton Brooks is one of the federal officials inquiring into the disappearance of two electronic data storage devices that were reported missing at the lab earlier this month.

Brooks planned no public comment Sunday on the missing devices or the investigation, lab spokesman Jim Fallin said.

“He’s here to conduct a very serious first look at the locations involved in this most recent security incident,” Fallin said.

Brooks’ visit came just two days after the lab’s director, Pete Nanos, broadened a “stand-down” of most lab activities. The University of California, which manages the lab for the Department of Energy, had ordered him to halt classified work a day earlier.

The stand-down announced Friday is open-ended, with some lab departments expected to resume work sooner than others. Nanos said officials will review every department’s activities and recommend that work resume only when all compliance issues have been addressed.

California

Busload of youths hijacked in Guatemala

A group of American volunteers — most of them teenagers — were hijacked and robbed by armed men while traveling on a service project in Guatemala and released unharmed, group leaders said.

The 13 teenagers and four adults were heading to El Salvador on Friday with the Sonoma nonprofit group Seeds of Learning when their bus was hijacked, executive director Katharine Hewitt said.

The bus was south of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, when a car and a pickup carrying the five gunmen cut them off, program director Annie Bacon told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

The hijackers fired shots, boarded the bus and asked for a translator. One of the men pushed the driver aside and started driving, Bacon said.

With Bacon translating, the robbers asked passengers to hand over their possessions and made off with $11,200 that had been donated for the service project, and personal possessions including cameras and cell phones, Bacon said.

The group then headed to Antigua and was staying at a hotel there on Saturday night while deciding whether to continue on to El Salvador, where they planned to build a new school.