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A report on the study by a Southampton University team, published in the journal Public Health, finds that dementia rates have trebled in men and increased by 90 percent among women, according to The Independent.

In the late 1970s, there were about 3 000 deaths a year from brain diseases in England and Wales. At the end of the last decade, that figure had risen to 10 000, researchers found.

The study examined rates of the diseases in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the United States between 1979 and 1997.

Marijuana a solution?
Meanwhile, from Spain came more hopeful news: An ingredient in marijuana may be useful for treating brain cancers, Spanish researchers reported Sunday.

The chemicals called cannabinoids could starve tumours to death by halting the growth of blood vessels that feed them, according to a team from Complutense University in Madrid.

Their research, published in the Aug. 15 issue of Cancer Research, showed that the cannabis extracts block a key chemical needed for tumours to sprout blood vessels - a process called angiogenesis.

Help for aggressive brain cancer
And for the first time, the team has shown the cannabinoids impede this chemical in people with the most aggressive form of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme, which is notoriously difficult to treat.

They took samples from two patients with glioblastoma multiforme who had not responded to surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, BBC reported. Samples were taken before and after the patients were treated with cannabinoid solution infused directly into the tumour. In both patients, the tumour was reduced following treatment. – (HealthDayNews)

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