Neumanns Argued Their Case Before Sentencing in Daughter’s Death

Two Wisconsin parents who prayed for their daughter to heal rather than seeking medical help faced a judge for sentencing for reckless homicide.

Dale and Leilani Neumann were convicted by separate juries of second-degree reckless homicide last year after their eleven-year-old daughter Kara died of undiagnosed diabetes.

In Marathon County court, a judge decided each parent will serve ten years on probation and up to six months in jail — one month a year for six years during either March or September, the anniversary of Kara’s birth and death, respectively.

Tuesday’s sentencing hearing lasted several hours as both the prosecution and defense presented their case to the judge and Dale and Leilani Neumann defended their actions.

“Nobody understands that but a parent that is grieving for their child,” Mrs. Neumann said.

An emotional Leilani Neumann told a Marathon County judge her family’s life has been turned upside-down every since Kara passed away.

Prosecutors say the Neumanns see themselves as victims for their religious beliefs but it was Kara who paid the ultimate price for their beliefs.

The second-degree reckless homicide charge carries up to 25 years in prison. The State recommended a minimum of a year in jail and ten years’ probation for each parent.

“They appear to love their children but they stood by and did virtually nothing while their youngest daughter died a slow, agonizing death,” Assistant District Attorney Lamont Jacobson argued.

Defense attorneys fought for no jail time at all, claiming their clients are being unfairly prosecuted because of their faith.

Dale Neumann explained to the judge, “Guilty? Of loving my God with my whole being and intellect, that’s what I’m guilty of.”

Despite their religious defense, the judge felt some punishment was necessary for Kara’s sake.

“When death is an element of the defense, you really can’t say death itself is an aggravating factor but when a person who dies is a young child it is,” Judge Vincent Howard said.

According to defense attorneys, the Neumanns won’t serve any of the jail time until the appeal has been heard.

Leaving the sentencing hearing, the Neumanns had smiles on their faces.

“Not right now,” Mrs. Neumann said to the media. “We need a few minutes, you can tell by our faces, but we need to talk to our lawyers first before we make any comments.”

Lawyers on both sides say the judge made a sound decision.

“I think that ultimately the judge determined that incarceration was not the appropriate remedy, and we concur with that,” Mr. Neumann’s attorney, Jay Kronenwetter, said.

“All of us grappled with it. It was clear that it was a difficult case for everyone involved,” Jacobson said.

Dale Neumann’s defense attorney told us the appeal process could take months, maybe even a year.

Judge Gives Probation to Parents in Prayer-death Case
The Central Wisconsin parents convicted in their daughter’s death will not go to prison but will spend ten years on probation and some time in jail.

A judge sentenced Dale and Leilani Neumann Tuesday afternoon for the death of their eleven-year-old daughter Kara. She died of complications from untreated diabetes while her parents prayed over her instead of seeking medical attention as her condition worsened.

Earlier this year, separate juries found each of the parents guilty of second-degree reckless homicide, a charge that carries up to 25 years in prison.

Both parents spoke to the judge at their sentencing hearing, calling Kara’s death an act of God, reading Biblical passages, and saying the only thing they’re guilty of is following their faith.

“Dale and I acted with love toward our daughter to the best way we could have, in the best way we could, because we love her,” Leilani Neumann testified.

“Even if she would have been taken to the hospital, as everyone thinks should have been the case, there’s only hypothetical speculation. There’s no substantiating facts, just hypothetical speculation as to whether she would have even lived,” Dale Neumann said.

Prosecutors argue the Neumanns painted themselves as victims of their religion and showed no remorse that their youngest daughter died.

Assistant District Attorney Lamont Jacobson said, “I feel sorry for the Neumanns because they’re horribly misguided and likely will come away from this experience having learned precious little.”

Judge Vincent Howard asked, “Did God say, ‘Well, Kara, come to me,’ or when Kara arrived did he ask, ‘Why are you here 70 years too soon?’”

The judge called the Neumanns good people who made a reckless decision.

The judge imposed conditions on their probation. There will be a month served in jail each year for the next six years in March or September — the anniversary of Kara’s birth and death, respectively.

They must allow random visits and checks by the public health nurse, and they are required to seek medical assistance in certain circumstances.

The judge said in court this was a very different case than many because of the freedom of religion issue, but he said he examined this case thoroughly before sentencing.

Defense teams for both Dale and Leilani Neumann plan to appeal the convictions

Dogs can detect cancer by the smell of breath

They’ve got funny names for cancer researchers, like Captain Jennings and Tibbs. They’re also a little furry and have a tendency to lick their white-coated colleagues. But these canine lab assistants may one day make it possible to detect cancers early enough to keep them from becoming fatal.

The Pine Street Foundation, a cancer education and research center in San Anselmo, Calif., is hoping one day to train these dogs to sniff out, literally, early-stage ovarian cancer—a disease that kills two-thirds of the 22,000 women diagnosed with it each year, according to the American Cancer Society, because it is often caught only after it has spread beyond the ovaries.

In 2006 the foundation published a study showing it was possible to train dogs to identify, based on breath samples,which patients had lung and breast cancer.

Now the organization is recruiting ovarian cancer patients and dogs for a new study.

Nicholas Broffman, executive director of the foundation, says the dogs are helping to answer an important question that may one day lead to earlier detection of diseases like ovarian and pancreatic cancers, which are often caught only in very late stages: Does cancer have a smell?

Does cancer have a smell?
“Is there something about the breath of people with cancer that is different in people who do not have cancer?” Broffman wants to know. “Our goal is to identify what collection of molecules in the breath are unique to ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, and lung cancer, and develop a test to find those.” Using animals to detect disease is not new, and this line of research is not as out there as it may sound.

Diabetes is detectable, too
Dogs, which have been used for decades as aides for the blind or hearing impaired and as companions for the infirm, have also taken new roles in alerting epileptics to impending seizures and diabetics to low blood sugar.

A few dozen miles east of the Pine Street Foundation, in Concord, Calif., Mark Ruefenacht, who runs dogs4diabetics says the link between a dog’s smell and its ability to detect hypoglycemia is well-established. He’s been training dogs for 10 years to pick up the scent of diabetics on the verge of hypoglycemia.

“We don’t know the complete science here, but when blood sugar starts to drop, the body starts to kick out chemicals in the breath, sweat, whatever,” Ruefenacht says. “Those chemicals indicate a change. The dogs can pick that up. Low blood sugar has a smell; high blood sugar has a smell; even the rapid change in blood sugar has a smell.”

In diabetics, the presence of  ketones—substances produced by the body as it breaks down fat for energy—can be smelled in urine and on the breath when blood sugars are high. Dogs, Ruefenacht says, can pick up on other smells that humans can’t when glucose levels drop.

These chemical scents are what scientists at the Pine Street Foundation and the University of Maine, which is helping in the ovarian cancer study, hope to identify for ovarian cancer. The research is still in its infancy, but researchers are clearly excited about the potential—and they’re not alone.

In a case study published in The Irish Journal of Medical Sciences last year, researchers claimed that a family pet had recognized hypoglycemia in an elderly man who had never been diagnosed with diabetes.

“Dogs have a sense of smell far superior to humans,” says study coauthor Mortimer O’Connor, MD, of Victory University Hospital in Cork, Ireland. Smell is just one way dogs may detect a condition change like low blood sugar, O’Connor says; he also suggests that they may taste a difference on a person’s skin or sense changes in the electric or magnetic energy the body emits.

Looking toward the future
Scientists may be years from identifying the specific biomarkers that distinguish the breath of people with cancer from those without, cautions Broffman—and years more from being able to distinguish one type of cancer, such as ovarian, from another.

Even further in the future: Developing a mechanical device that can sense those biomarkers when someone breathes into it. “It would be great to have a Breathalyzer-type machine that could do this,” Broffman says. “Our goal is to identify what collection of molecules are unique to ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, or lung cancer, and can we develop a test to find those. Scientifically, this is very difficult.”

That’s because this wouldn’t require just detecting one molecule—which is difficult enough—but a range of molecules, Broffman says. “Together, these molecules smell like cancer. When we smell a rose, we’re not smelling individual rose molecules, but our brain puts all the molecules together and says, ‘OK, that’s a rose.’”

For a computer to accomplish that level of pattern recognition, Broffman says, the patterns have to be extremely well-defined. “This is the challenge, scientifically. This may why we never replace dogs. Maybe dogs will be always be better at this.”

Dogs can detect scents as small as one part per trillion—or the equivalent of a drop of ink in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, Broffman says. “No scent detection device on the planet that can come close to that.”

So for early detection of such diseases, scientists’ best bet for now has four legs and a tail—and may one day be known as the cancer patient’s best friend.

Dale Neumann’s trial continues,Leilani testifies for 4 hours on behalf of divine healing

9:09 a.m. Court has begun and Leilani is taking the stand now.

9:19 a.m. Leilani told jurors that Dale calls the children by their first names and she calls them by their middle names. Throughout the trial, the Neumanns’ daughter is referred to by the attorneys by both Madeline and Kara. The Daily Herald has used the name Kara as that is the name she is most often referred to.

9:31 a.m. LaMont Jacobson, a senior attorney for the District Attorney’s office, is questioning Leilani. So far he has asked generally background questions, such as naming her children, husband, where she lives and describing the layout of her homes.

When asked why move from California to Wisconsin, Leilani said, “We care about the spiritual needs of the county.”

From her testimony: Dale’s family was from the Wausau area. While living in California, Leilani said material things began to not matter as much. They decided to take their California ministry back to Wisconsin.

9:45 a.m. Leilani’s answers to Jacobson’s questions are often long and she has a story for every answer when Jacobson was aiming for a short response.Leilani is answering the questions energetically. Other than having trouble remembering dates, she has been answering all of Jacobson’s questions, even if they are long-winded responses.

9:57 a.m. Jacobson was becoming frustrated when Leilani would not answer his question if she believed sickness is caused by sin with a yes or no answer.

Leilani tried to explain that God doesn’t want people to harbor disobedience and unforgiveness inside themselves and that there is a spiritual root cause to sickness.

“Answer yes or no. Maybe I’m too stupid to understand otherwise,” Jacobson said.

10 a.m. Courthouse security decided to put up the metal detectors today outside the courtroom. The metal detectors were up every day during Leilani’s trial in May with the expectation of large crowds. As it turns out, the courtroom audience was small and there were no problems.I’m guessing because Leilani was expected to testify today, security decided to take the precaution.

10:08 a.m. Jacobson asked Leilani about Kara’s condition Friday night, two days before she died. The Neumanns had a Bible study that night and she had noticed Kara was tired. She did not think anything was wrong with Kara so she did not cancel the Bible study.I love my children. If I sensed I needed to watch her closer, I would have,” Leilani Neumann said.

“I’m a mother and I love my children. If I sensed I needed to watch her closer, I would have,” Leilani Neumann said.Prior to that, Leilani had an interesting comment describing the family’s Bible study sessions at the coffee shop.

“It’s casual Bible study, but the word of God is intense,” Leilani said.

10:30 a.m. Leilani testified that she became scared when she discovered how pale and cold Kara was after coming home from work on Saturday, the day before Kara’s death.The family then began to pray for her, she said. Kara was carried to an upstairs bedroom because she was too weak to walk, Leilani said.

10:37 a.m. Leilani told juors that it was Dale who sent an E-mail to David Eells, who leads an Internet minisitry. In the E-mail, the Neumanns asked for emergency prayer for Kara who was pale and very weak. She could not recall who made the final decision to sent the E-mail.

11:10 a.m. We are taking a break after nearly two hours of testimony from Leilani. Judge Howard seemed frustrated by the slow pace, considering the prosecutors listed six witnesses to testify this morning. Howard said if things don’t change, court sessions might have to take place in the evening.
// 11:19 a.m. Court is back in session. Howard indicated that court will resume this evening after the jury eats dinner.

11:55 a.m. I just noticed that a second petition has been placed on the American Liberty Radio Web site to disbar a court official in connection with the Neumann case.Previously, The Daily Herald reported that a petition was created to disbar Jill Falstad, the former district attorney who prosecuted the Leilani Neumann trial. She has since taken the bench as a circuit court judge.

Now there is a petition on the Internet site to disbar Judge Vincent Howard, who has presided over both Leilani and Dale’s trials.

“We believe that the actions of Marathon County, WI Circuit Court Judge Vincent Howard clearly warrants the legal revocation of his law license and that an investigation by the state of Wisconsin be conducted into the Judicial Misconduct of Judge Vincent Howard and all court and police officials involved in the malicious prosecutions of both Dale and Leilani Neumann,” the petition says.

The Falstad petition has garnered 413 signatures and Howard’s has 53 signatures, according to the Web site.

11:59 a.m. Jacobson ends his questioning so a lunch break will be taken. I’ll be back at 1 p.m.

1:10 p.m. Court is back in session. Leilani Neumann is still on the stand, being cross-examined by Dale’s attorney Jay Kronenwetter.

1:25 p.m. Leilani spoke briefly about the family’s former coffee shop, Monkey Mo in Weston, where they held Bible study sessions. “Work, play, ministry are one. We never separate them,” Leilani Neumann said. “Monkey Mo was a way to be together with our own family It was our second home. … When people found out we were open to spiritual issues, we would talk for hours.”

1:55 p.m. Leilani made more comments about her religious beliefs, the role of healing and doctors.

“We are not against the people (doctors). The practice we consider not biblical,” Neumann said.

Leilani said there are two types of medicine in the Bible, spiritual and natural.

When the Neumanns came to Wisconsin, Leilani said she began to pray to better understand divine healing and to trust God completely.

“I remember very vividly when the Lord put it very heavy on my heart to believe in divine healing,” Leilani Neumann said.

Leilani said she had suffered allergies and anxiety attacks, but when she recognized the spiritual cause of the ailments, she was healed instantly.

2:02 p.m. Judge Howard asked Leilani to keep her answers shorter instead of giving long, narrative answers.“Keep it short and you might get off the stand yet today,” Howard said

2:05 p.m. I guess Leilani will get off the witness stand today. Jay Kronenwetter ends his cross-examination. LaMont Jacobson is asking another round of questions.

2:23 p.m. Leilani’s testimony is done.“Everything for us is about faith,” Leilani Neumann said. “It’s about trusting in God. We have to believe God’s word or you don’t. It’s a test every second of our lives.”

2:29 p.m. Dr. Michael Stier, who performed the autopsy on Kara, is now testifying.

Neumann attorney: Doctors’ treatment would have killed girl

The defense attorney for a man accused of reckless homicide in the death of his 11-year-old daughter told a jury this morning that doctors’ treatment plans for the girl would likely have killed her.

Jay Kronenwetter made the statement during his opening remarks for the trial of his client, Dale Neumann. Neumann is charged with second-degree reckless homicide in connection with the March 23, 2008 death of Madeline Kara Neumann. Neumann is accused of praying for his daughter’s recovery as she was dying from complications of diabetes.

Marathon County Assistant District Attorney Lance Leonhard told a jury of eight men and six women that Neumann should have seen the signs that Kara, as the girl was known, was seriously ill and should have been taken to a doctor. Family members as far away as California urged the Neumann family to take Kara to a doctor, Leonhard said.

“This is not a case of a parent’s right to raise kids as they see fit or the parent’s right to pray,” Leonhard said. “It’s about Madeline Kara Neumann’s needless suffering and death.”

Kronenwetter said that Neumann’s faith guides his life and his decisions. The family never knew Kara had diabetes nor were they told at the hospital that she died from complications of the illness.

Kara’s symptoms were far from typical for this complex disease, and furthermore, that doctors likely would have made mistakes in her treatment if she were brought to the hospital alive, Kronenwetter said.

“I think the evidence in (the doctors’) own testimony will show you that quite likely what they would have done, the standard procedure, would have hastened Kara’s death because of the way diabetes was operating in her body,” Kronenwetter said.

The trial resumes Monday with the first witnesses being called, including two doctors and Dale’s wife, Leilani Neumann. Leilani Neumann, Kara’s mother, was convicted of the same charge May 22. She will be sentenced Oct. 6.

Petition started to disbar former county DA

A radio group that broadcasts programs from an online ministry to which Dale and Leilani Neumann belong has started a petition to impeach and disbar Jill Falstad for her prosecution of the town of Weston couple.

The Neumanns were accused of failing to seek medical attention for their 11-year-old daughter who died March 23, 2008, from undiagnosed complications of diabetes. Prosecutors said the Neumanns should have noticed Madeline Kara Neumann becoming ill weeks prior to her death. When her parents began to notice symptoms about two days before Kara’s death, they chose to pray for her recovery and said they saw her illness as a challenge to their faith, according to court records.

Leilani Neumann, 41, was convicted May 22 of second-degree-reckless homicide. She will be sentenced Oct. 6 and faces a 25-year prison sentence. A jury trial is scheduled to begin July 23 for 47-year-old Dale Neumann.

American Liberty Radio, which broadcasts on the Internet and satellite radio, collected 349 signatures as of Friday on its Web site.

The petition says the Neumanns were not aware Kara was suffering from a serious condition and cited Wisconsin statutes to argue that the Neumanns were within their legal rights to use prayer in lieu of medical treatment.

The petition referred to the prosecution as “malicious” and claims Falstad used the case for political gain. Falstad, who was the Marathon County district attorney at the time, is now a Marathon county circuit court judge.

The petition was directed to the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the state bar association. Tom Solberg, a spokesman for the State Bar of Wisconsin, was unaware of the petition and said it would be up to the Office of Lawyer Regulation to investigate complaints against any member.

Office of Lawyer Regulation Director Keith Sellen was not available Friday, but a receptionist said there was no record of the office being notified of the petition.

Neither the petition’s author at American Liberty Radio nor Falstad could be reached Friday for comment.

Links to the petition are found at www.help
theneumanns.com and the Unleavened Bread Ministries Web site.

Wis. father saw sickness as ‘test of his faith’

A Wisconsin man accused of killing his daughter by praying instead of seeking lifesaving medical help considered her illness “a test of his faith,” a prosecutor told jurors Saturday.

Dale Neumann, 47, is a “full-Gospel Christian,” who did not know his 11-year-old daughter had diabetes, his defense attorney said. There is also not “a shred of evidence” Neumann knew his prayers would fail to help his daughter or cause her death, the lawyer said.

Neumann is charged with second-degree reckless homicide in the 2008 death of his daughter Madeline Neumann, called Kara by her parents. His wife, Leilani, was convicted of the same charge this spring and faces up to 25 years in prison when sentenced Oct. 6.

The girl died from undiagnosed diabetes on March 23, 2008, surrounded by people praying at the family’s rural home in Weston in central Wisconsin. Someone called the emergency dispatcher when she stopped breathing.

Prosecutors contend Neumann recklessly killed the youngest of his four children by ignoring her deteriorating health. They claim the girl was too weak to speak, eat, drink or walk and Neumann had a legal duty to take her to a doctor.

Marathon County Circuit Judge Vincent Howard scheduled opening statements during a rare Saturday court session to try to make sure the trial ended by Friday. An eight-man, six-woman jury begins hearing witness testimony Monday.

An Oregon jury on Thursday convicted a father of misdemeanor criminal mistreatment for relying on prayer instead of seeking medical care for his 15-month-old daughter who died of pneumonia and a blood infection in March 2008. The father and mother were acquitted of a more serious manslaughter charge.

Marathon County Assistant District Attorney Lance Leonhard stood next to a picture of a smiling Madeline Neumann on a large TV screen as he told the jury the sweet, mild-mannered child liked arts and crafts and loved her God.

“This case is not about parents having the right to raise their children as they see fit or the right to pray,” he said. “This case is about Madeline Kara Neumann’s needless suffering and death.”

Her parents knew the child was gravely ill — they had used a large syringe to squirt chicken broth in her mouth to give her nourishment, Leonhard said. Still, he said, “They depended solely on God to heal her.”

Dale Neumann told a Bible study friend he considered his daughter’s illness “a test of his faith,” Leonhard said.

No one can survive untreated diabetes, but medical statistics show 998 out of 1,000 people in the same stage of illness as Kara can be successfully treated with fluids and insulin, he said.

Defense attorney Jay Kronenwetter told jurors the efforts of the ambulance attendants or doctors who eventually cared for Kara might have caused her death. It’s also not certain the girl would have lived if she had gotten to doctors earlier, he said.

“Quite likely, what they would have done, the standard procedures, would have hastened her death because of the way diabetes was operating in her body,” Kronenwetter said. “Not every tragedy is a crime.”

Neumann tried to help his daughter, the defense attorney said.

“Dale Neumann solicited the help of numerous individuals to pray,” Kronenwetter said. “He did that because of his faith, because he believed that was what would save his daughter.”

Jury Selected in Dale Neumann Homicide Tri

Eight men and six women will hear the trial of Dale Neumann, 47, and decide whether he’s innocent or guilty.

Neumann is on trial for second degree reckless homicide in death of his daughter Kara, 11.

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// ]]>It took two days for prosecutors, defense attorney Jay Kronenwetter, and Judge Vincent Howard to select 14 jurors.

12 are considered actual jurors, and two more are alternates in the case.

All 14 will hear the trial, but the alternates will be dismissed before jury deliberations.

Because the jury is sequestered, they are required to avoid all news stories on the case, and in order to be fair and impartial, they can’t talk about the case to anyone.

Opening statements are set for Saturday, and the first witnessed is scheduled to take the stand Monday.

The trial is expected to last a week and a half.

Neumann faces 25 years in prison if he’s convicted.

His wife, Leilani Neumann, faces 25 years in prison now. She was convicted of the same charge after her trial in May.

Prosecutors will try to convince jurors Neumann recklessly killed Kara by ignoring her symptoms of diabetes.

The Neumanns say they did nothing wrong and believed God would cure her. They say the Constitution protects freedom of religion.

Mother’s Health Before Conception May Influence Child’s Disease Risk Women Hoping to Be Moms Should Watch Their Diet

A mother’s health and diet just before conception and during the first few days of fetal development could have an impact on a child’s health in the long run, researchers say.

Researchers found that the effects of nutrition, such as a high-fat diet and vitamin B and folate…

Researchers found that the effects of nutrition, such as a high-fat diet and vitamin B and folate deficiencies, as well as diseases such as diabetes, during this time could trigger epigenetic changes that manifest in offspring as obesity, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular disease.

(ABC News Photo Illustration)

New evidence on this crucial window of time — much of it from animal studies — was presented at this year’s meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction in Pittsburgh.

Researchers found that the effects of nutrition, such as a high-fat diet and vitamin B and folate deficiencies, as well as diseases such as diabetes, during this time could trigger epigenetic changes that manifest in offspring as obesity, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular disease.

“All of our work suggests there should be a three- to four-month preconception period that’s included in good maternal health,” said Dr. Kelle Moley of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who presented one of the studies.

“Early dietary changes or early nutritional changes in the mom can effect epigenetic modifications,” she said. “These are persistent in offspring and can be passed down across generations.”

//

The researchers said that they became interested in this period of time after finding evidence of higher rates of genetic imprinting disorders in babies conceived via in-vitro fertilization.

“This opened the door to ideas that changes early in development could have long-term effects,” Moley said.

“An unfertilized egg and early embryos are very sensitive to their environments,” said Kevin Sinclair of the University of Nottingham in England, also an author of one of the studies.

Moley has been studying how diabetes affects production of a mother’s egg cells, potentially leading to mitochondrial metabolic dysfunction — and hence, birth defects.

“We’ve been tackling the question of why, even though we control blood sugar during pregnancy, we still have three- to four-fold greater numbers of birth defects than control patients,” she said.

Sinclair’s work focused on the effects of vitamin deficiency during the time leading up to conception. He looked at sheep that were fed a normal diet or a diet deficient in vitamin B12 and folate.

The offspring of those on the vitamin-deficient diet were more likely to become obese, experience insulin resistance, and have high blood pressure.

The effects were most pronounced in male offspring, Sinclair said, and he saw similar results in a mouse model.

A third study by Tom Fleming of the University of Southampton in England looked at the effects of a low-protein diet just prior to conception and during the early days of fetal development in mice.

Throughout the rest of their pregnancy, the animals were fed a normal diet.

The researchers found that this caused cardiovascular problems, particularly hypertension and arterial disease, as well as other metabolic disorders in the offspring.

//

Again, there was evidence of stronger effects in male mice.

Fleming said what’s happening during this short window of time is that the tiny ball of cells that is the fetus is “sensing” its maternal nutritional environment.

If nutrients are scarce, the embryo will make decisions about how best to get nutrients from its mother, potentially overcompensating.

In a fourth study, researchers have been attempting to get even closer to a human model by looking at primates. Dr. Kjersti Aagaard-Tillery of Baylor College in Houston, Texas, and colleagues studied macaques given a 35 percent high-fat diet.

Some of the animals became obese as a result of the diet, while others did not. But of those who became pregnant, all gave birth to offspring that developed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and high levels of fats known as triglycerides in the blood.

Gene raises Alzheimer’s risk, but testing for it doesn’t raise anxiety

Adult children of Alzheimer’s disease patients don’t suffer psychological distress when told they carry a gene that increases their risk of the disease, researchers report Thursday.

Increasingly, companies are marketing tests directly to consumers that promise to reveal their genetic susceptibility to killers such as heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

Because the tests are virtually unregulated, concerns have been raised about their accuracy as well as their value. While people can take steps to protect against heart disease or diabetes, there’s no known effective way to minimize Alzheimer’s risk.

The only known genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s, which begins after age 60, is the apolipoprotein E, or apoE, gene.

There are three main apoE types: 2, 3 and 4. The new study is the first to randomly tell people their apoE types, the authors write in The New England Journal of Medicine. Up to two-thirds of Americans inherited two copies of apoE3, which doesn’t seem to affect Alzheimer’s risk. ApoE2 appears to be somewhat protective, while apoE4, carried by at least one in five, raises the risk.

People who inherit apoE4 from both parents are at least five times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who don’t carry a copy. Another study in this week’s New England Journal found that healthy apoE4 carriers also are likely to begin experiencing age-related memory decline sooner than non-carriers.

“People were very, very nervous essentially about the danger of this information, so much so they thought you shouldn’t give it,” says Lawrence Brody, a senior scientist at the National Human Genome Institute, who wasn’t involved in either study.

But lead author Robert Green, a Boston University professor of neurology, genetics and epidemiology, says many want to know their apoE status. “We’re testing a procedure that we think allows them to learn this information with safety,” Green says.

His study of 162 volunteers found that those who were told they carried apoE4 were no more anxious or depressed than those who weren’t told their test results. Anxiety and depression were reduced in those who learned they don’t carry apoE4.

Still, Green says, his findings don’t prove that testing is perfectly safe. The study excluded those who were anxious or depressed to begin with, and trained genetics counselors disclosed test results. Plus, the authors write, they don’t know whether the findings would apply to people without a family history of Alzheimer’s.

“I’m not sure this paper answers whether we should or shouldn’t do it (testing),” Brody says. “It’s a good first step.”