Category: Dementia

It is one of the largest ever studies of its kind.

Regularly doing crosswords and other word puzzles is linked to better brain function in later life, new research finds.

The study analysed data from over 17,000 people aged over 50.

They were asked how often they did word puzzles like crosswords.

The results showed that people who regularly did word puzzles had brains that were the equivalent of 10 years younger.

Professor Keith Wesnes, one of the study’s authors, said:

“We found direct relationships between the frequency of word puzzle use and the speed and accuracy of performance on nine cognitive tasks assessing a range of aspects of function including attention, reasoning and memory.

Performance was consistently better in those who reported engaging in puzzles, and generally improved incrementally with the frequency of puzzle use.

For example, on test measures of grammatical reasoning speed and short-term memory accuracy, performing word puzzles was associated with an age-related reduction of around 10 years.

We now need to follow up this very exciting association in a clinical trial, to establish whether engaging in puzzles results in improvement in brain function.”

Professor Clive Ballard, commenting on the study, said:

“We know that many of the factors involved in dementia are preventable.

It is essential that we find out what lifestyle factors really make a difference to helping people maintain healthy brains to stop the soaring rise of the disease.

We can’t yet say that crosswords give you a sharper brain — the next step is to assess whether encouraging people to start playing word games regularly could actually improve their brain function.”

Dr Doug Brown, Director of Research of Alzheimer’s Society, said:

 “We know that keeping an active mind can help to reduce decline in thinking skills.

This new research does reveal a link between word puzzles, like crosswords, and memory and thinking skills, but we can’t say definitively that regular ‘puzzling’ improves these skills.

To be able to say for sure, the crucial next step is to test if there are benefits in people who take up word puzzles.

In the meantime our top tips to reduce the risk of developing dementia are keeping physically active, avoiding smoking and eating a healthy balanced diet.”

The study was presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2017.

People in the study also lived longer who drank this every day.

Older people who regularly consume alcohol are more likely to reach 85-years-old without dementia, new research finds.

Those drinking moderate to heavy amounts of alcohol were twice as likely to be cognitively healthy as non-drinkers.

Moderate drinking was defined as around two drinks a day for men under 65, and one for women.

Heavy drinking was defined as around four drinks a day for men under 65, and two for women.

The limits for people over 65 are a little lower.

Over these levels is considered excessive.

Drinking was also linked to reduced mortality, said Dr Linda McEvoy, who led the study:

“This study is unique because we considered men and women’s cognitive health at late age and found that alcohol consumption is not only associated with reduced mortality, but with greater chances of remaining cognitively healthy into older age.”

The conclusions come from a study that followed 1,344 older adults over 29 years.

Dr Linda McEvoy said:

“It is important to point out that there were very few individuals in our study who drank to excess, so our study does not show how excessive or binge-type drinking may affect longevity and cognitive health in aging.”

One of the difficulties with these kinds of studies is that they are based on statistical associations.

That means that it can be difficult to say that drinking alcohol is really causing these cognitive benefits.

However, Erin Richard, the study’s first author, said:

“This study shows that moderate drinking may be part of a healthy lifestyle to maintain cognitive fitness in aging.

However, it is not a recommendation for everyone to drink.

Some people have health problems that are made worse by alcohol, and others cannot limit their drinking to only a glass or two per day.

For these people, drinking can have negative consequences.”

The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Richard et al., 2017).

There are 9 risk factors for dementia, which can all be reduced.

One-in-three cases of dementia is a result of manageable lifestyle factors, a new report from 24 international experts concludes.

There are nine risk factors identified by dementia experts:

• low levels of education,
• midlife hearing loss,
• physical inactivity,
• high blood pressure (hypertension),
• type 2 diabetes,
• obesity,
• smoking,
• depression,
• and social isolation.

These risk factors account for 35% of dementia cases.

In other words: changing or managing these factors will help fight off dementia.

Addressing high blood pressure, obesity and hearing loss reduces risk by 20%, the experts conclude.

Professor Lon Schneider, one of the report’s authors, said:

“There’s been a great deal of focus on developing medicines to prevent dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.

But we can’t lose sight of the real major advances we’ve already made in treating dementia, including preventive approaches.”

Approaches that include managing depression, increasing social contact and physical activity could reduce dementia risk another 15%

Professor Schneider said:

“The potential magnitude of the effect on dementia of reducing these risk factors is larger than we could ever imagine the effect that current, experimental medications could have.

Mitigating risk factors provides us a powerful way to reduce the global burden of dementia.”

Drugs are also not the best way to treat dementia, the experts concluded.

Professor Schneider said:

“Antipsychotic drugs are commonly used to treat agitation and aggression, but there is substantial concern about these drugs because of an increased risk of death, cardiovascular adverse events and infections, not to mention excessive sedation,”

Instead social contact and activities were better at stemming aggression and agitation linked to dementia.

Around 47 million people around the world have dementia.

It is estimated this number could be as high as 115 million by 2050.

The study was published in the journal The Lancet (Livingston et al., 2017).

Alzheimer’s image from Shutterstock

How your diet can stop your brain from ageing.

Leafy green vegetables like kale and spinach are particularly good for cognitive health, new research underlines.

People with higher levels of lutein — a nutrient found in them — had the neural response of younger brains.

Professor Naiman Khan, who led the research, said:

“Now there’s an additional reason to eat nutrient-rich foods such as green leafy vegetables, eggs and avocados.

We know these foods are related to other health benefits, but these data indicate that there may be cognitive benefits as well.”

The body cannot make lutein so it has to be obtained from the diet.

Lutein typically accumulates in the eye and brain.

Here are 10 foods that are high in lutein:

1. Spinach.
2. Kale.
3. Carrots.
4. Broccoli.
5. Eggs.
6. Red and yellow peppers.
7. Sweetcorn.
8. Tomatoes.
9. Cress.
10. Chicory.

Dr Anne Walk, the study’s first author, said:

“As people get older, they experience typical decline.

However, research has shown that this process can start earlier than expected.

You can even start to see some differences in the 30s.

We want to understand how diet impacts cognition throughout the lifespan.

If lutein can protect against decline, we should encourage people to consume lutein-rich foods at a point in their lives when it has maximum benefit.”

Dr Walk explained the results of of the study:

“The neuro-electrical signature of older participants with higher levels of lutein looked much more like their younger counterparts than their peers with less lutein.

Lutein appears to have some protective role, since the data suggest that those with more lutein were able to engage more cognitive resources to complete the task.”

Professor Khan hopes to continue studying the benefit sof lutein:

“In this study we focused on attention, but we also would like to understand the effects of lutein on learning and memory.

There’s a lot we are very curious about.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (Walk et al., 2017).

New study on elderly mice suggests cannabis could be a good treatment for dementia.

Cannabis reverses the brain ageing process, new research finds.

The study on elderly mice showed that their brains could be regressed to the state of two-month-olds.

They were given a low-dose treatment with a cannabis-active ingredient (THC).

THC could prove to be a good treatment for dementia eventually, the researchers think.

Professor Andreas Zimmer, who led the research, said:

“With increasing age, the quantity of the cannabinoids naturally formed in the brain reduces.

When the activity of the cannabinoid system declines, we find rapid ageing in the brain.

It looked as though the THC treatment turned back the molecular clock.”

The ‘elderly’ mice in the study were actually two-years-old.

Mice normally start to show cognitive deficits at around one-year-old.

However, a four week low-dose course of THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) reversed these cognitive deficits.

Professor Zimmer said:

“The treatment completely reversed the loss of performance in the old animals.”

The next stage is to conduct clinical trials in humans.

The study was published in the journal Nature Medicine (Bilkei-Gorzo et al., 2017).

Shiny brain image from Shutterstock

Studies on both humans and mice have suggested a protective effect.

Caffeine — along with 24 other compounds — could help to protect against dementia.

The protective effect comes from an enzyme called NMNAT2 that was discovered last year.

Professor Hui-Chen Lu, who led the study, said:

“This work could help advance efforts to develop drugs that increase levels of this enzyme in the brain, creating a chemical ‘blockade’ against the debilitating effects of neurodegenerative disorders.”

NMNAT2 plays a dual role.

It guards neurons against stress and helps fight the formation of the tangles of proteins that are linked to dementia.

Caffeine has already been shown to improve memory function in mice.

One study on humans has also linked caffeine to a 36% reduction in dementia.

Research has now shown that caffeine increases levels of the critical NMNAT2 protein in mice.

Professor Lu said:

“Increasing our knowledge about the pathways in the brain that appear to naturally cause the decline of this necessary protein is equally as important as identifying compounds that could play a role in future treatment of these debilitating mental disorders.”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Ali et al., 2017).

Changes in sleep quality are linked to dementia.

People who sleep more than 9 hours a night have double the risk of developing dementia, new research reports.

Those sleeping longer also have lower brain volumes.

The exception was well-educated people, Professor Sudha Seshadri, a study author, explained:

“Participants without a high school degree who sleep for more than 9 hours each night had six times the risk of developing dementia in 10 years as compared to participants who slept for less.

These results suggest that being highly educated may protect against dementia in the presence of long sleep duration.”

The conclusions come from a study that followed people over 10 years to see who developed dementia.

People who slept 9 hours or more were at double the risk of developing dementia as those who slept less than 9 hours a night.

Dr Matthew Pase, study co-author, said:

“Self-reported sleep duration may be a useful clinical tool to help predict persons at risk of progressing to clinical dementia within 10 years.

Persons reporting long sleep time may warrant assessment and monitoring for problems with thinking and memory.”

However, it is probably not excessive sleep that is a cause of dementia.

Rather, excessive sleep is a symptom of dementia.

Dr Rosa Sancho, from Alzheimer’s Research UK, said:

“While unusual sleep patterns are common for people with dementia, this study adds to existing research suggesting that changes in sleep could be apparent long before symptoms like memory loss start to show.

Other studies have indicated a link between changes in sleep quality and the onset of dementia, and while this wasn’t measured in this study, it could be an important factor affecting sleep duration.”

The study was published in the journal Neurology (Westwood et al., 2017).

The first study to identify a 10% increased dementia risk resulting from home location.

One-in-ten cases of dementia could be down to living near busy roads, new research finds.

Scientists had previously guessed that both traffic noise and air pollution may contribute to neurodegenerative disorders.

But this is the first study to find evidence of the link.

The results from a study of 6.6 million people in Canada.

It found that living within 50 metres of a busy road significantly raised the risk of dementia.

The study looked at the link between living near a busy road and developing:

• multiple sclerosis,
• Parkinson’s disease,
• and dementia.

Only dementia risk was associated with living near a busy road.

The further people lived from a busy road, the more their risk reduced:

• 7-11% higher risk for those living within 50 metres.
• 4% higher risk for those living 50-100 metres away.
• 2% higher risk for those living 101-200 metres.
• No additional risk for those living more than 200 metres away.

Dr Hong Chen, the study’s first author, said:

“Despite the growing impact of these diseases, little is known about their causes and prevention.

Our study suggests that busy roads could be a source of environmental stressors that could give rise to the onset of dementia.

Increasing population growth and urbanisation has placed many people close to heavy traffic, and with widespread exposure to traffic and growing rates of dementia, even a modest effect from near-road exposure could pose a large public health burden.

More research to understand this link is needed, particularly into the effects of different aspects of traffic, such as air pollutants and noise.”

The study also found that exposure to both nitrogen oxide and fine particulate matter were both linked to dementia risk.

Although both are common pollutants, they did not explain the full risk, which may be attributable to other factors, such as noise pollution.

Dr Lilian Calderón-Garcidueñas, writing in a linked article, said:

“The significant association of newly diagnosed cases of dementia in the study period between 2001 and 2012 with the proximity to traffic road less than 50 m-300 m versus more than 300 m, and the robust observation of dementia involving predominantly urban versus rural residents, opens up a crucial global health concern for millions of people…

The health repercussions of living close to heavy traffic vary considerably among exposed populations, given that traffic includes exposures to complex mixtures of environmental insults…

We must implement preventive measures now, rather than take reactive actions decades from now.”

The study was published in the journal The Lancet (Chen et al., 2016).

An activity that may reduce dementia risk by two-thirds.

Frequent saunas are linked to a reduction of 66% in developing dementia, new research finds.

Compared with those taking a sauna once a week, those taking saunas 4-7 times a week saw the marked reduction in dementia risk.

It is the first time a link has been identified between taking saunas and a lower risk of dementia.

The results come from a Finnish study of 2,315 middle-aged men.

They were followed up over an average of 20 years later.

The researchers found that Alzheimer’s risk was reduced by 65% among those taking frequent saunas.

The risk of developing any form of dementia was reduced by 66% in the frequent sauna group.

For those taking 2-3 saunas a week, the reduction in risk was around 20%.

The study’s authors conclude that:

“…in this male population, moderate to high frequency of sauna bathing was associated with lowered risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Further studies are warranted to establish the potential mechanisms linking sauna bathing and memory diseases.

One cause of the beneficial effects of saunas could be down to its effect on cardiovascular health.

Previous studies have also found that saunas may reduce the chances of sudden cardiac death as well as the chances of other heart problems (Laukkanen et al., 2015).

It could be that the benefit to the heart acts in a similar way to the benefit to the brain.

Professor Jari Laukkanen, who led the study, said:

“However, it is known that cardiovascular health affects the brain as well.

The sense of well-being and relaxation experienced during sauna bathing may also play a role.”

The study was published in the journal Age and Ageing (Laukkanen et al., 2016).

image from Shutterstock

The dietary supplement has already been linked to lower depression, treating autism and reducing social anxiety.

For the first time, probiotics have been shown to improve cognition and fight dementia.

Probiotics are live bacteria that can be taken as dietary supplements.

The study showed that just 12 weeks of daily doses of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium bacteria had a beneficial effect.

Elderly people with Alzheimer’s showed improvements in cognition.

Probiotics have already been linked to:

• Stopping sadness becoming depression,
• treating autism,
• and reducing social anxiety.

Professor Mahmoud Salami, a study author, said:

“In a previous study, we showed that probiotic treatment improves the impaired spatial learning and memory in diabetic rats, but this is the first time that probiotic supplementation has been shown to benefit cognition in cognitively impaired humans.”

Probiotic dietary supplement

The study compared two groups of Alzheimer’s patients, who were between 60 and 95 years-old.

Half received milk that was fortified with four probiotic bacteria:

• Lactobacillus acidophilus,
• L. casei,
• L. fermentum,
• and Bifidobacterium bifidum.

The others received just the milk.

Along with improvements in cognition, the researchers also saw improvements in physiological measures, such as triglyceride levels.

Professor Salami said:

“These findings indicate that change in the metabolic adjustments might be a mechanism by which probiotics affect Alzheimer’s and possibly other neurological disorders.

We plan to look at these mechanisms in greater detail in our next study.”

Professor Walter Lukiw, who reviewed the study, said:

“This early study is interesting and important because it provides evidence for gastrointestinal (GI) tract microbiome components playing a role in neurological function, and indicates that probiotics can in principle improve human cognition.

This is in line with some of our recent studies which indicate that the GI tract microbiome in Alzheimer’s is significantly altered in composition when compared to age-matched controls, and that both the GI tract and blood-brain barriersbecome significantly more leaky with aging, thus allowing GI tract microbial exudates (e.g. amyloids, lipopolysaccharides, endotoxins and small non-coding RNAs) to access Central Nervous System compartments.”

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