UAB study explores the link between brain inflammation and Parkinsons
A new research study conducted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham supports the premise that there is a connection between inflammation and Parkinson’s disease early in the disease’s progression. The findings were published online in Movement Disorders. The study found reason to accept the conclusion that central inflammation is observed early in the disease process of Parkinson’s. The study found that inflammation is independent of treatment for the disease and correlates with cognitive features and certain peripheral markers of inflammation. Dr. Talene Yacoubian is a professor in the Department of Neurology at Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine. “An association between inflammation and Parkinson’s is well known, but a fundamental question remains unanswered,” said Dr. Yacoubian. “Does inflammation play a role in the onset of Parkinson’s, or is it a byproduct of the disease itself? Our findings show that inflammation is present in the early stages of the disease.” Yacoubian’s team studied 58 people newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and compared them with 62 healthy control subjects. “Enrolling study subjects early in their disease progression was significant,” said Yacoubian. “We wanted to see if inflammation was present early on in the disease, before patients had even begun on Parkinson’s medications.” Yacoubian holds the John A. and Ruth R. Jurenko endowed professorship at UAB. The team used PET imaging to target translocator protein, or TSPO, a protein found primarily in microglial cells and other immune cells in the brain. Increased TSPO is associated with inflammation. Yacoubian and colleagues used a radioligand developed in Europe called 18F-DPA-714. Once injected into the bloodstream, this radioactive molecule binds to TSPO, causing it to light up on PET imaging. “We found elevations in TSPO binding in untreated subjects at early stages of Parkinson’s, indicating the presence of inflammation,” Yacoubian said. “Our data clearly demonstrate that increased TSPO binding is present in Parkinson’s independent of treatment effects. Our multimodal study provides further evidence that TSPO signal as measured by 18F-DPA-714 is a marker of inflammation.” Economic developer Dr. Nicole Jones told Alabama Today, “UAB continues to meet the medical needs of residents in central Alabama and is known as a research and development leader. Through R&D, physicians learn more about debilitating diseases, which can help identify potential treatments. Congratulations to UAB on the grant awarded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke/NIH/DHHS to further study Parkinson’s. Your continued pursuit has the opportunity to help shape the lives of Alabamians and the world.” Yacoubian says several key gaps remain as to the role of inflammation in Parkinson’s disease, including the potential effects of Parkinson’s treatments on inflammation, whether or not inflammation changes over time, and whether or not pro-inflammatory signals predict a more rapid progression of the disease. Early symptoms of Parkinson’s can include tremors in hands, slowness and paucity of movement, limb stiffness, and gait and balance problems. Non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s include depression, anxiety, apathy, hallucinations, constipation, orthostatic hypotension, sleep disorders, loss of sense of smell, and a variety of cognitive impairments. There is no cure for Parkinson’s, but treatments and lifestyle changes can benefit persons diagnosed with the ailment. Pope John Paul II, actor Michael J. Fox, boxer Muhammed Ali, President George H. Bush, evangelist Billy Graham, former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, and former attorney general Janet Reno are notable people diagnosed with Parkinson’s. To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Day 2 at GOP convention: a first lady, a pardon, Mike Pompeo
Trump pardoned a reformed felon, he used the White House Rose Garden to elevate his wife’s keynote address and he oversaw a naturalization ceremony for several immigrants in the midst of the prime-time program.
Evangelical tussling over anti-Donald Trump editorial escalates
As the political clamor caused by a top Christian magazine’s call to remove President Donald Trump from office continues to reverberate, more than 100 conservative evangelicals closed ranks further around Trump on Sunday. In a letter to the president of Christianity Today magazine, the group of evangelicals chided Editor-in-Chief Mark Galli for penning an anti-Trump editorial, published Thursday, that they portrayed as a dig at their characters as well as the president’s. “Your editorial offensively questioned the spiritual integrity and Christian witness of tens-of-millions of believers who take seriously their civic and moral obligations,” the evangelicals wrote to the magazine’s president, Timothy Dalrymple. The new offensive from the group of prominent evangelicals, including multiple members of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, signals a lingering awareness by the president’s backers that any meaningful crack in his longtime support from that segment of the Christian community could prove perilous for his reelection hopes. Though no groundswell of new anti-Trump sentiment emerged among evangelicals in the wake of Christianity Today’s editorial, the president fired off scathing tweets Friday accusing the establishment magazine – founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham in 1956 — of becoming a captive of the left. The letter to the magazine’s president sent on Sunday also included a veiled warning that Christianity Today could lose readership or advertising revenue as a result of the editorial, which cites Trump’s impeachment last week. Citing Galli’s past characterization of himself as an “elite” evangelical, the letter’s authors told Dalrymple that “it’s up to your publication to decide whether or not your magazine intends to be a voice of evangelicals like those represented by the signatories below, and it is up to us and those Evangelicals like us to decide if we should subscribe to, advertise in and read your publication online and in print, but historically, we have been your readers.” Among the signatories of the letter are George Wood, chairman of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship; Rev. Tim Hill of the Church of God; former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee; and former Minnesota GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann. Galli told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he views the chances of Trump leaving office, either through a reelection loss or post-impeachment conviction by the Senate, as “probably fairly slim at this point.” The editor-in-chief defended his editorial as less of a “political judgment” than a call for fellow evangelicals to examine their tolerance of Trump’s “moral character” in exchange for his embrace of conservative policies high on their agenda. “We’re not looking for saints. We do have private sins, ongoing patterns of behavior that reveal themselves in our private life that we’re all trying to work on,” Galli said Sunday. “But a president has certain responsibilities as a public figure to display a certain level of public character and public morality.” Galli referred comment on Sunday’s evangelical letter to Dalrymple, who on Sunday published his own strongly worded defense of the magazine’s anti-Trump commentary. Countering Trump’s suggestion that the magazine had shifted to favor liberals, Dalrymple wrote that the publication is in fact “theologically conservative” and “does not endorse candidates.” “Out of love for Jesus and his church, not for political partisanship or intellectual elitism, this is why we feel compelled to say that the alliance of American evangelicalism with this presidency has wrought enormous damage to Christian witness,” Dalrymple wrote. Asked about the editorial’s indictment of Trump by “Fox News Sunday,” Marc Short – chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, himself a prominent evangelical Christian – cited some of the policy positions that have helped endear the president to many in that voting bloc. “For a lot of us who are celebrating the birth of our Savior this week, the way that we look at it is that this president has helped to save thousands of similar unplanned pregnancies,” Short said Sunday, adding that “no president has been a greater ally to Israel than this president.” Roughly 8 in 10 white evangelical Protestants say they approve of the way Trump is handling his job, according to a December poll from The AP-NORC Center. The Trump campaign is planning a Jan. 3 event in Miami called “Evangelicals for Trump.” Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content. This story has been corrected by deleting a reference to Samuel Rodriguez as among those who signed a letter Sunday, which he was not. By Elana Schor Associated Press Republished with the Permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump blasts Christian magazine that called for his removal
President Donald Trump is blasting a prominent Christian magazine that published an editorial arguing that he should be removed from office. Trump tweeted Friday morning that the magazine, Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham, is a “far left“ publication, which “has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years.” He adds that it “knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call,” a reference to his July call with the president of Ukraine that led to his impeachment. Trump claims the magazine would rather have “a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President.” In the editorial, titled, “Trump Should Be Removed from Office,” the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Mark Galli, writes that, “Democrats have had it out for” Trump “from day one.” But he says that, “the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.” He goes on to write that, whether Trump should be removed by the Senate or by popular vote in the 2020 election “is a matter of prudential judgment.” But, he says: “That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.” The editorial came one day after the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives made Trump the third president in American history to be impeached. It charged him with abuse of power in pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations of his Democratic rival, and with obstructing Congress in the ensuring investigation. Trump is deeply popular among Evangelicals, with roughly 7 in 10 white evangelical Protestants saying they approve of the way he is handling his job as president, according to Pew Research Center polling from earlier this year. And many prominent Evangelicals have stood by him — despite a colored personal history, allegations of sexual misconduct, deeply divisive policies and profanity-laced comments. That includes Graham’s son, Rev. Franklin Graham. Indeed, Trump said in his tweets that, “No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close.” And he declared that he “won’t be reading ET again!” using the wrong initials to describe the publication. Asked Friday in an interview with CNN about the tweets, Galli said Trump’s characterization of the magazine as far left was “far from accurate,” but also said he is realistic about the impact of his words. “I don’t have any imagination that my editorial is going to shift their views on this matters,” Galli said of those who support the president. “The fact of the matter is Christianity Today is not read by the people, Christians on the far right, by evangelicals on the far right, so they’re going to be as dismissive of the magazine as President Trump has shown to be.” Republished with the Permission of the Associated Press.
Martha Roby: Honoring the legacy of America’s pastor
Reverend Billy Graham, known by many as “America’s Pastor,” passed on from this life on February 21, 2018. Americans honored his life and legacy as he lay in honor in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol building. It was truly remarkable how many individuals and families traveled from all across our great country to participate in this celebration of Reverend Graham’s life. Reverend Graham spent his life witnessing – in person – to an estimated 215 million people in 185 countries, not to mention the countless lives he touched through those who watched him on television and listened to him on the radio. From 1947 to 2005, Reverend Graham led roughly 417 crusades using his talents and convictions to bring others to Christ. He was loved by many throughout the world and appeared on Gallup’s poll of most admired men and women every year since they first asked this question in 1955. Lying in honor or lying in state is a rare act of recognition granted to especially noteworthy citizens or public officials after they pass on from this world. The person’s casket is placed in the rotunda of the Capitol building for public viewing so that Americans and people from across the world have the opportunity to pay their respects. Reverend Graham was the fourth private citizen in our nation’s history to lie in honor – he was preceded by Ms. Rosa Parks in 2005. Reverend Graham created a remarkable history with stops in Alabama throughout his career. In 1962, he stepped off a plane in Huntsville to lead his first crusade in our state where he spoke to a crowd of 35,000 people. A couple of years later, after the horrific Birmingham church bombing, Reverend Graham returned to Alabama and held his 1964 Easter rally at Legion Field. During this tragic time of uncertainty, he offered a message of hope to more than 35,000 Alabamians. The following year, after the attacks during the landmark march from Selma to Montgomery, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Reverend Graham to visit Alabama yet again. He accepted this invitation and led crusades at Auburn University, the University of Alabama, Tuskegee University, and he also made a stop in Dothan. Throughout these crusades, Reverend Graham had a single mission: to bring all people together regardless of race, social status, occupation, background, or faith, to hear the word of God. Reverend Graham knew what he believed and why he believed it – and he truly lived out his faith through his exemplary life. His message was not for one select group, but for every man and woman from every walk of life. Reverend Graham’s voice touched millions, whether at Sunday services in his Charlotte, North Carolina, church, a rally in an Alabama stadium, a military base overseas, or on the home televisions of many families all over the country. I believe the many personal stories and experiences that have been shared after Reverend Graham’s passing are a true testament to his character and the impact he had on our country and throughout the world. America’s Pastor was certainly a good and faithful servant, and I’m confident his legacy will continue to shine through the lives of the many, many people he inspired. ••• Martha Roby represents Alabama’s Second Congressional District. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama with her husband Riley and their two children.
Gary Palmer: Remembering Reverend Billy Graham
Alabama 6th District U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer on Wednesday delivered a speech on the House floor to remember the legacy of Reverend Billy Graham. Reverend Graham will lie in honor in the Rotunda at the United States Capitol on Wednesday. Below is the text of Palmer’s speech: I want to thank my good friend Mr. Hultgren for arranging this opportunity to honor Billy Graham. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will witness something that we have never seen before – the laying in honor of the body of an American who was not a government official, didn’t lead a political movement, and wasn’t a war or social movement hero. A nation will mourn a man who was single-minded in his devotion to one thing. His life and vocation centered on one thing and one thing only: proclaiming the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ. I hope we pay close attention to this. We will most likely never see it again. In Mark, Jesus tells his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Few people followed this instruction more faithfully than Reverend Billy Graham, and with as much success and impact. Billy Graham has been called “America’s Preacher.” But the fact of the matter is that he was for many decades the most recognized and respected evangelical in the world. Reverend Graham preached the gospel to more than 200 million people during his more than 400 Crusades and rallies in more than 185 countries and territories. The impact of those reached through TV, radio, video and the Internet is unquantifiable. Reverend Graham did this sacrificially, giving up many opportunities for other, much more lucrative opportunities that most people would have jumped at, were they given the opportunity. Reverend Graham estimated that he was gone from home for about 60% of his children’s adolescence. Despite being a pseudo-single mom, his wife Ruth understood the importance of the sacrifice. She once said, “I’d rather have a little of Bill than a lot of any other man.” In a time when Christians are so often shunned and ridiculed, particularly those who have major followings, Billy Graham was almost universally regarded as a steady and well-respected voice. He appeared on Gallup’s list of Most Admired Men in America 60 times since 1955 – that’s every year since the research firm began asking the question. “He counseled and covered in prayer every president from Truman to Trump. Former President Clinton said, “When he prays with you in the Oval Office or upstairs in the White House, you feel he is praying for you, not the president.” That’s the magnitude of this man No matter how big or small you were, he cared about you, not your position. Titles and wealth and social stats didn’t matter to Reverend Graham. The only position of a person that mattered to him was their eternal position before God. And race did not matter either. Reverend Graham was courageous. When other church leaders remained silent, he was an outspoken advocate for racial equality, consistently stating, “Christ belongs to all people.” In 1951, he called for the Southern Baptist Convention to accept black students at their colleges. At a 1953 crusade in Tennessee he personally took down ropes segregating the audience. In 1957, during his crusade in New York, he invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to open one night with prayer. Despite his actions, he said he wished he would have done more to help Dr. King. In 1964, just months after the bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Reverend Graham brought his crusade to Birmingham. Before he agreed to come, Reverend Graham insisted that the audience be integrated. Over 30,000 people attended, making it, at the time, the largest integrated audience in the history of Birmingham. The next year, he spoke to an integrated audience in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with the University of Alabama president Frank Rose and head football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant with him on the stage. Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe there is or will be anyone else in our lifetime that so clearly and effectively called people out of spiritual darkness into the light than Billy Graham. Untold millions were exposed to the saving message of the gospel through his ministry. I mourn the void in moral and spiritual authority that, with his death, has been left in this world, but I rejoice in knowing that he is finally at home and at rest with God. As it is written about David in Acts 13:36, so it can be said of Billy Graham: “He served God’s purpose for his generation. Thank you, and I yield back.
Franklin Graham to hold prayer rally on Alabama Capitol steps Thursday
Franklin Graham, the son of world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham, will pray on the Alabama State Capitol steps at noon Thursday. Graham, who is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), will visit Montgomery as part of his nationwide “Decision America Tour 2016” — a national outreach effort of the BGEA to visit the state capitals of all 50 states this year, spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and encourage grass-roots involvement in the political process in communities across the country. “The moral and political walls of our nation are crumbling,” Graham said earlier this year. “Our nation is in trouble. And there’s not one political party that can fix it.” Thursday’s stop will be Graham’s sixteenth stop on the 50 state tour that began Jan. 5 and is scheduled to wrap-up shortly before Election Day in his home state of North Carolina. Before heading to Montgomery, Graham will visit Arkansas Tuesday and Mississippi Wednesday. “I hope that Christians will turn out by the thousands—families, college student groups, church bus loads—and let it be known that we care, we have a voice, and we’re going to be involved in the political process in this country,” he wrote on Facebook Saturday. Prior to this week, Graham’s most recent stop was in Sacramento, California, where an estimated 7,500 people showing up at the State Capitol on March 31 to pray hand in hand. According to the tour’s website, since the tour’s inception more than 13,400 people have formed prayer groups and 66,000 people have signed pledges to be leaders for Jesus Christ in their communities.
