A Blood Test to Detect Alzheimer's Disease Moves Closer to Reality Researchers believe game-changing test will be available to doctors in 2 years by Rachel Nania, July 29, 2020 Andrew Brookes/Getty Image A simple blood test may be able to tell you whether you have Alzheimer's disease and, in some cases, it can detect the disease decades before symptoms set in. Research presented at this year's virtual Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) on Tuesday and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) focused on a new blood test that can detect a specific type of protein that serves as an indicator for both amyloid plaques and tau tangles — two defining features of Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common form of dementia. Alzheimer's is typically diagnosed by doctors through a series of memory tests and behavior evaluations, which some experts say can be inaccurate. If you want to know whether you have...

Medicare Is Running Out Of Money July 21, 2020 5:01 AM ET Julie Rovner pablohart/Getty Images Funding is shrinking for Medicare's Part A trust fund, which pays for hospitalization and in-patient care. The funding largely comes from a 1.45% payroll tax paid by employees and employers. Everyone involved even tangentially in health care today is consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, as they should be. But the pandemic is accelerating a problem that used to be front and center in health circles: the impending insolvency of Medicare. With record numbers of Americans out of work, fewer p...

5 Ways Playing Chess Can Boost Your Mind and Your Life The benefits of actively playing chess are supported by numerous studies.  Paul Ratner 09 January, 2017 Want to transform your brain and make better decisions? Learn chess, a game synonymous with intelligence and brain power. It's been proven by numerous studies to help a variety of mind skills and has been growing in popularity around the world.  According to a World-Chess-Federation-sanctioned YouGov polling study from 2012, 70% of adults have played chess at some point in their lives, with the number of worldwide chess players estimated to be above 605 million . The percentage of active chess players stood at 15% in the US, 23% in Germany, and 43% in Russia . A whopping 85 million played chess in India, buoyed by the popularity of the former world chess champion Viswanathan Anand.  Some more recent stats from the organizers of the 2014 world chess championship report  that  1.2 billion ...