NOTICE OF ROAD CLOSURE
Ali‘i Drive will be closed from
Palani Road to Hualalai Road
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5
at dusk for
1
/
2
hour for a torch parade
Ka‘ahumanu Place will be
closed to vehicles ALL DAY on
FRIDAY, SEPT. 4 • SATURDAY, SEPT. 5
SUNDAY, SEPT. 6
QUEEN
LILI‘UOKALANI
OUTRIGGER
CANOE
RACES
KAI ‘O– PUA CANOE CLUB
will be holding a Craft Fair on Sat. Sept. 5 & Sun. Sept. 6
in conjunction with the Queen Lili‘uokalani Canoe Races.
Mahalo for your understanding.
KAILUA PIER
Likana Lane
P
a
l
a
n
i
R
d
Ka‘ahumanu Place – closed
Sarona Rd
Kahikina
Lane
Hualalai Road
ALI‘I DRIVE
HALE
HALAWAI
A
L
I
‘
I
D
R
I
V
E
K AI LUA BAY
Come visit our Logo Shop in the
Courtyard by Marriott King
Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel
Thursday Sept. 3 – Sunday, Sept. 6
C A L L 9 3 8 - 8 5 7 7 F O R I N F O R M A T I O N
UP COUNTRY
Monday, Sept 7- Labor Day
9am-2pm
Christ Church Episcopal,
81-1004 KONAWAENA SCHOOL ROAD,
KEALAKEKUA, HI 96750
Corner of Mamahaloha Hwy (Highway 11)
& Konaweana School Road
Just Below Konaweana High School
Call
808-769-4343
for info/ directions
Water Slide, Ono Grinds, Magic Show, Games and
Prizes, Face Painting, Petting Zoo, Bouncy Castle
Opu Treats, Live Music, Balloon Extraordinaire, Silent
and LIVE Auction and so much MORE!!!
FUN FOR ALL AGES!!!
ACTIVITIES FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!!!
REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR CAMERA TO
CAPTURE THE MEMORIES!!!!!
9A
west hawaii today | wednesday, september 2, 2015
Obese at 50?
WASHINGTON
—
One more reason to
watch the waistline:
New research says peo-
ple’s weight in middle
age may influence not
just whether they go on
to develop Alzheimer’s
disease, but when.
Obesity in midlife
has long been suspect-
ed of increasing the
risk of Alzheimer’s.
Researchers at the
National Institutes of
Health took a closer look
and reported Tuesday
that being overweight
or obese at age 50 may
affect the age, years
later, when Alzheimer’s
strikes. Among those
who eventually got sick,
more midlife pounds
meant an earlier onset
of disease.
It will take larger stud-
ies to prove if the flip
side is true — that keep-
ing trim during middle
age might stall later-in-
life Alzheimer’s. But it
probably won’t hurt.
“Maintaining a healthy
BMI at midlife is likely
to have long-lasting pro-
tective effects,” said Dr.
Madhav Thambisetty of
NIH’s National Institute
on Aging, who led the
study reported in the jour-
nal Molecular Psychiatry.
About 5 million peo-
ple in the U.S. are liv-
ing with Alzheimer’s,
a number expected to
more than double by
2050, barring a medi-
cal breakthrough, as the
population ages.
Alzheimer’s starts qui-
etly ravaging the brain
more than a decade
before symptoms appear.
With a cure so far elusive,
researchers are hunting
ways to at least delay
the disease, and lifestyle
changes are among the
possible options.
To explore obesity’s
effects, Thambisetty’s
team turned to the
Baltimore Longitudinal
Study of Aging, one of the
longest-running projects
to track what happens to
healthy people as they
get older. They checked
the records of nearly
1,400 participants who
had undergone regular
cognitive testing every
year or two for about 14
years; 142 of them devel-
oped Alzheimer’s.
The
researchers
checked how much
those
Alzheimer’s
patients weighed when
they were 50 and still
cognitively healthy. They
tracked BMI, or body
mass index, a measure of
weight to height. Every
step up on the BMI
chart predicted that
when Alzheimer’s even-
tually struck, it would be
6½ months sooner.
In other words, among
this group of Alzheimer’s
patients, someone who
had been obese — a
BMI of 30 — during
middle age on aver-
age had their dementia
strike about a year earli-
er than someone whose
midlife BMI was 28, in
the overweight range,
Thambisetty explained.
The threshold for
being overweight is a
BMI of 25.
The Alzheimer’s study
didn’t track whether the
patients’ BMI fluctuat-
ed before or after age
50. There’s no way to
know if losing pounds
after that age made a
difference in dementia
risk, although a healthy
weight is recommended
for many other reasons.
Some of the Baltimore
Longitudinal study par-
ticipants
underwent
brain scans during life
and autopsies at death.
Those tests found people
with higher midlife
BMIs also had more of
the brain-clogging hall-
marks of Alzheimer’s
years later, even if they
didn’t develop dementia.
Tuesday’s study adds
to previous research
linking midlife obesity
to a risk of Alzheimer’s,
but it’s the first to also
find those brain chang-
es, a clue important to
examine further, said
Heather Snyder of the
Alzheimer’s Association,
who wasn’t involved in
the work.
Meanwhile,
the
Alzheimer’s group has
long recommended a
healthy weight: “What’s
good for your heart is
good for your brain,”
Snyder noted.
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
The Associated Press
Midlife weight may affect
when Alzheimer’s hits
(808) 329-4044
73-5581 Lawehana Street
Kailua-Kona, HI 96740
C17629
your one stop shop
for all of your
solar needs
H
a
w
a
i
i
a
n
S
o
l
a
r
$1000
Hawaiian Energy
Efficiency Program
REBATE
when replacing an
electric water heater
35% State
Tax Credits
30% Federal
Tax Credits
