In Sunday's USA Weekend, on the front page they listed one of their featured articles, "Protect your dog from Alzheimer's".
With apologies to people who love their pets, it seems really wrong to spend one word or one cent on studying Alzheimer's in pets, when people are dying and whole families are being devastated by this terrible disease. I would hate to think that any research dollars are being directed to studying Alzheimer's in dogs, when that might have been the research money that helped find a cure for our loved ones.
Part of the article said, "In one canine study, a group of dogs was enrolled in continuing canine education and followed an exercise protocol. The control group was fed a special anti-aging diet. All the dogs were periodically tested for cognitive skills, and Cottman (director of Alzheimer's Disease Research at the University of California-Irvine) couldn't believe the results."
"It was a fantasy come true because the results were so definitive, proving social interactions, exercise, enrichment and diet really do make a difference in dogs," he says. "We believe the same must be true for people.""