Isle team gets $7 million
to study aging

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By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

Honolulu researchers have received a $7 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to look deeper into causes of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, strokes and healthy aging.

The team is trying to understand individual characteristics and exposures through life that appear associated with developing those diseases, said Dr. Lon White of the Pacific Health Research Institute, principal investigator.

"On the other hand, we're looking hard to identify individuals at low risk of developing those diseases. What are the lifetime behaviors and factors associated with really escaping all those things?"

The new grant follows a $4 million National Institute of Aging award last year, also for five years, for studies of brain structure of participants in postmortem examinations with family permission.

The team in 1991 began the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study as a spinoff of the Honolulu Heart Program, which began in 1965 with 8,006 Japanese-American men on Oahu.

The volunteers, born between 1900 and 1919, were identified through the World War II Selective Service registration files. About 2,000 are living, with the youngest about 82 years old.

Co-investigators in the aging studies include Drs. Helen Petrovitch, G. Webster Ross, Kamal Masaki, John Hardman, Patricia Blanchette, David Curb, Robert Abbott and James Nelson.

They represent various institutions: the Pacific Health Research Institute, Kuakini Medical Center, the University of Hawaii Schools of Nursing and Medicine, and the Spark Matsunaga Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The group has published many studies on different aspects of the volunteers' lives related to aging and diseases. They are currently looking at experiences working on plantations and dietary issues, White said.

A recent paper examined the relationship of constipation to the development of Parkinson's disease.

When the researchers looked at what men with Parkinson's disease told them about bowel movement and frequency 25 to 30 years ago, White said, they complained of constipation and often used laxatives.

This raises a question as to whether there is "a constitutional predisposition that involves the neurological system that determines how fast the gut operates, related to the susceptibility of Parkinson's disease," White said.

Another possibility would be some sort of toxin in food that might contribute to the disease over many years if it sits in the intestine longer, he said. But these still are speculations, he pointed out.

The researchers have shown that men who drank more coffee in midlife were at lower risk for developing Parkinson's, White noted. Those who smoked as adults also were found at lower risk for the disease.

"Nobody really knows why," he said. "Again, we are investigating the possibility that there is something about the nervous system of people who really like risk-taking or stimulation that might identify those at lower risk of getting Parkinson's disease.

"It's been said for a long time, the personality characteristic associated with being very cautious and careful may be associated with greater risk."

The researchers are trying to understand influences on aging from genetic factors and those developed later in life.

"What we really see is, most of the men in the cohort have not become demented and have not developed Parkinson's disease, and in fact are doing quite well," White said.

"But as they age, a higher and higher proportion has one of those two diseases (Alzheimer's and Parkinson's) or have had strokes."

The Hawaii researchers are comparing their data with findings of teams studying Japanese people in Hiroshima and in Seattle.