Category: Dementia

People showed improved memory and the ability to perform tasks more quickly.

Regular moderate exercise is enough to slow brain ageing by the equivalent of ten years, research finds.

The study followed 876 people over 65-years-old across more than 10 years.

They were given tests of memory and thinking skills along with brain scans.

Unfortunately, 90 percent of the people in the study reported that they did light or no exercise.

Light exercise included things like yoga and walking.

Moderate exercise included things like aerobic, callisthenics and running.

Dr Clinton B. Wright, one of the study’s authors, said:

“The number of people over the age of 65 in the United States is on the rise, meaning the public health burden of thinking and memory problems will likely grow.

Our study showed that for older people, getting regular exercise may be protective, helping them keep their cognitive abilities longer.”

After five years, those who were at least moderately active could remember more words from a list and could perform simple tasks more quickly.

Dr Wright said:

“Physical activity is an attractive option to reduce the burden of cognitive impairment in public health because it is low cost and doesn’t interfere with medications.

Our results suggest that moderate to intense exercise may help older people delay aging of the brain, but more research from randomized clinical trials comparing exercise programs to more sedentary activity is needed to confirm these results.”

The study was published in the journal Neurology (Willey et al., 2016).

The light activities that a person can do to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

How unbearable is the thought of commuting nearly 400 miles a day or watching TV for 12 hours everyday?

Well, the thought is not that far from reality as most U.S. adults remain seated 12 hours of their daily life.

The mental and physical health conditions of a sedentary lifestyle are mostly known to us.

Sitting too long has been shown to increase the odds of many long-term diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other health issues including fatigue, depression, anxiety, and dementia.

To overcome the serious damage caused by an inactive lifestyle, general health guidelines recommend adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week.

A study, though, has found that doing light activities such as household tasks during the day will lower the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Dr Steven Hooker, the study’s first author, said:

“Light-intensity physical activity can include vacuuming, sweeping the floor, washing the car, leisure strolling, stretching, or playing catch.

We observed that both physical activity and being sedentary independently impacted stroke risk.

Our research demonstrates that strategies for stroke prevention should focus on both.”

In this study, nearly 8,000 adults aged 45 and older were recruited and followed over seven years.

The research team calculated the amount of time subjects spent sitting down and the intensity of physical activity.

To measure and record physical activity and sedentary time, participants had to wear a hip-mounted accelerometer during the day.

Next, they looked at the number of strokes that occurred during seven years of follow-up.

The results showed that participants who were inactive for 13 hours or longer throughout the day were 44 percent more likely to have a stroke.

Dr Hooker said:

“The findings are more potent because the activity and sedentary behaviors were measured with an accelerometer, providing substantially more accurate data than previous studies that relied on self-reported measures.”

According to U.S. national data from 2010 to 2015 published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 23 percent of adults met the guidelines for both aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities.

A different  study suggests that walking 7,000 steps (5.6 km or 3 miles) each day lowers the risk of death by about two-thirds in adults.

If doing so is not practical then exercising or taking part in light to moderate intensity activities for 10 minutes several times a day would help a lot to lower the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Dr Hooker said:

“For overall heart and brain health, move more within your capacity, and sit less.”

The study was published in JAMA Network Open (Hooker et al., 2022).

Half of Americans use a drink linked to dementia on any given day.

Both sugary and artificially sweetened ‘diet’ drinks are linked to dementia by two studies.

People who drink sugary beverages tend to have poorer memories, smaller brains and a smaller hippocampus (an area vital for learning and memory).

Diet sodas, though, don’t seem much safer.

A follow-up study found that people who drink diet sodas are three times more likely to develop dementia and stroke, compared to those who drink none.

Both studies show associations, so it doesn’t prove cause and effect.

Professor Sudha Seshadri, who led the research, said:

“These studies are not the be-all and end-all, but it’s strong data and a very strong suggestion.

It looks like there is not very much of an upside to having sugary drinks, and substituting the sugar with artificial sweeteners doesn’t seem to help.

Maybe good old-fashioned water is something we need to get used to.”

Excess sugar intake has long been linked to obesity, diabetes  and heart disease.

Its effect on the brain is more of an unknown (although what are the chances it’s going to be good for us?!)

More surprising is the link between diet sodas and dementia.

The researchers suggest it could be down to the artificial sweeteners used.

Sugar is toxic to the brain

This is certainly not the first study to link sugar intake with dementia.

Another study linked excess sugar intake with Alzheimer’s disease.

It suggested that too much glucose (sugar) in the diet damages a vital enzyme which helps fight the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

High blood sugar levels have also been linked to memory problems.

The researchers in this study think that sugar could have a ‘toxic’ effect on the brain.

The studies were published in the journals Stroke and Alzheimer’s & Dementia (Pase et al., 2017; Pase et al., 2017).

The exact reason for the connection is not known, but researchers hypothesise that some diseases may accelerate dementia.

People who get at least one flu shot have a 40 percent reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, a study finds.

The more flu shots a person has, the greater the protective effect against the neurodegenerative disease.

The exact reason for the connection is not known, but researchers hypothesise that some diseases may accelerate dementia.

The conclusions come from a nationwide sample of almost 2 million U.S. adults aged over 60.

It compared the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in those with and without flu vaccination.

Dr Avram S. Bukhbinder, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“We found that flu vaccination in older adults reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease for several years.

The strength of this protective effect increased with the number of years that a person received an annual flu vaccine — in other words, the rate of developing Alzheimer’s was lowest among those who consistently received the flu vaccine every year.

Future research should assess whether flu vaccination is also associated with the rate of symptom progression in patients who already have Alzheimer’s dementia.”

The research found that over four years of follow-ups, 5.1 percent of flu vaccinated patients developed Alzheimer’s.

The same figure for those without flu vaccinations was 8.5 percent.

The mechanism for this protective effect is not clear said Professor Paul. E. Schulz, study co-author:

“Since there is evidence that several vaccines may protect from Alzheimer’s disease, we are thinking that it isn’t a specific effect of the flu vaccine.

Instead, we believe that the immune system is complex, and some alterations, such as pneumonia, may activate it in a way that makes Alzheimer’s disease worse.

But other things that activate the immune system may do so in a different way — one that protects from Alzheimer’s disease.

Clearly, we have more to learn about how the immune system worsens or improves outcomes in this disease.”

Other studies have found that the tetanus, polio, and herpes vaccines, among others, all reduce dementia risk.

It may be that the COVID-19 vaccine that many people have had will also provide a protective effect, although the research on this question is yet to be done.

The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Bukhbinder, 2022).

Improved working memory, vocabulary, and episodic memory.

Older adults who have a busy lifestyle also have better cognitive function, research reports.

The results come from one of the most comprehensive studies of how the brain changes with age: The Dallas Lifespan Brain Study.

Dr Sara Festini, the study’s first author, said:

“We show that people who report greater levels of daily busyness tend to have better cognition, especially with regard to memory for recently learned information.

Living a busy lifestyle appears beneficial for mental function, although additional experimental work is needed to determine if manipulations of busyness have the same effect.”

The Dallas Lifespan Brain Study included 330 people aged between 50 and 89.

Their daily routines were recorded along with their cognitive performance.

The results showed that whatever age they were, the brains of people who were busier worked better.

Busier people had better:

• working memory,
• reasoning,
• vocabulary,
• and episodic memory (the ability to remember specific events in the past).

It’s not yet clear exactly what causes what.

For example, people with more active brains may tend to be busier people.

The researchers, though, think that being busy gives people more opportunities to learn and puts them in more new situations.

Being busy also tends to bring people into contact with others more.

Both factors may help to stimulate the brain.

Professor Denise Park, a study co-author, said:

“We were surprised at how little research there was on busyness, given that being too busy seems to be a fact of modern life for so many.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (Festini et al., 2016).