Dementia - Page 28 of 36

This Legal Drug Could Protect Brain From Ageing

Could cigarettes contain the latest clue to an anti-ageing drug?

Could cigarettes contain the latest clue to an anti-ageing drug?

Nicotine could help to protect the brain from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, new research finds.

The substance — when given independently from tobacco — could help to protect the ageing brain.

The neuroprotective effect of nicotine could be down to its well-known quality of reducing appetite.

For the study, the researchers gave varying levels of nicotine to mice in their drinking water.

There was no evidence, though, that it caused anxiety, which the researchers were concerned would be the case.

Dr Ursula Winzer-Serhan, who led the research, said:

“Some people say that nicotine decreases anxiety, which is why people smoke, but others say it increases anxiety.
The last thing you would want in a drug that is given chronically would be a negative change in behavior.
Luckily, we didn’t find any evidence of anxiety: Only two measures showed any effect even with high levels of nicotine, and if anything, nicotine made animal models less anxious.”

The mice given the highest levels of nicotine ate the least and gained the least weight.

Dr Winzer-Serhan cautioned:

“I want to make it very clear that we’re not encouraging people to smoke.
Even if these weren’t very preliminary results, smoking results in so many health problems that any possible benefit of the nicotine would be more than cancelled out.
However, smoking is only one possible route of administration of the drug, and our work shows that we shouldn’t write-off nicotine completely.”

The next step for the researchers is to test whether nicotine has a an anti-ageing effect.

Dr Winzer-Serhan said:

“Although the results are intriguing, we would need large-scale clinical trials before suggesting anyone change their behavior.
At the end of the day, we haven’t proven that this addictive drug is safe — and it certainly isn’t during childhood or adolescence — or that the benefits outweigh the potential risks.”

The study was published in the Journal of Toxicology (Huang et al., 2016).

7 Ways Reading Enhances Both Mind And Body

The right type of reading has all sorts of psychological and even physical benefits.

The right type of reading has all sorts of psychological and even physical benefits.

1. Increased empathy

Fiction helps to increase people’s empathy with others, a handful of psychological studies find.

All sorts of narratives, including literary fiction, TV shows and even certain video games could help boost our fellow-feeling.

Literary fiction, in particular, which simulates the social world, may help to boost our empathy with others.

One study gave people a test of empathy after they had either read some literary fiction or some nonfiction.

It was the literary fiction which produced the most empathetic response in people.

2. Greater mental flexibility

Writing which challenges the reader to think more deeply could boost mental flexibility, new research finds.

People who read poetry and other texts that required them to re-evaluate the meaning showed fascinating changes to patterns of activation in the brain.

Greater mental flexibility — which these patterns suggested — allows people to better adapt their thoughts and behaviours to evolving situations.

Rather than always being guided by habits, people with greater mental flexibility are better at seeking out new solutions.

3. Higher rationality and creativity

Reading has repeatedly been linked to creativity.

One study has found that, after reading fiction, people have a lower ‘need for closure’ (Djikic et al., 2013).

The ambiguous nature of fiction encourages people to accept more ambiguous thoughts.

Thinking about and accepting ambiguity is thought to be a key to creativity.

When you can entertain multiple perspectives, it is easier to see new possibilities.

4. Brain connectivity and function

A study in which participants’ brains were scanned before, during and five days after reading a novel has found persistent neurological changes.

The results showed that there were changes in the brain’s resting state that persisted after participants had finished reading the novel.

The study’s lead author, Professor Gregory Berns, explained:

“Even though the participants were not actually reading the novel while they were in the scanner, they retained this heightened connectivity.
We call that a ‘shadow activity,’ almost like a muscle memory.”

5. Lower prejudice

Learning about other people’s worlds can help to reduce prejudice.

One study of the Harry Potter books suggested that they could significantly reduce prejudice against homosexuals, refugees and immigrants (Vezzali et al., 2014).

6. Stave off dementia

Activities that stimulate the brain have been shown to stave off dementia.

And what could be much more stimulating than some challenging reading?

One study found that people who read later in life have a 32% lower rate of declining mental abilities (Wilson et al., 2013).

Other studies have also suggested that reading is linked to lowered risk of Alzheimer’s.

7. Extend life

A new study reveals that reading books can enhance lifespan for up to two years and improve the quality of life.

The study found that people who read books for just 30 minutes a day lived two years longer compared to non-book readers.

The Best Way To Keep Your Brain 10 Years Younger

The brain is particularly sensitive during the middle years.

The brain is particularly sensitive during the middle years.

The brains of obese individuals are physiologically 10 years older than lean individuals, new research finds.

Scientists looked at the brain’s white matter.

The white matter is the tissue that connects the areas and enables them to communicate with each other.

(In the images above, the white matter, confusingly, is in yellow, and it shows one subject with a BMI of 19.5 on the left and another with a BMI of 43.4 on the right.)

Dr Lisa Ronan, first author of this study, said:

“As our brains age, they naturally shrink in size, but it isn’t clear why people who are overweight have a greater reduction in the amount of white matter.
We can only speculate on whether obesity might in some way cause these changes or whether obesity is a consequence of brain changes.”

The study looked at the brains of 473 people aged between 20 and 87.

Overweight individuals had significantly less white matter in their brains than lean individuals.

The differences were only seen from middle-age onwards.

Professor Paul Fletcher, senior author of the study, added:

“We’re living in an ageing population, with increasing levels of obesity, so it’s essential that we establish how these two factors might interact, since the consequences for health are potentially serious.
The fact that we only saw these differences from middle-age onwards raises the possibility that we may be particularly vulnerable at this age.
It will also be important to find out whether these changes could be reversible with weight loss, which may well be the case.”

Professor Sadaf Farooqi, co-author of the study, said:

“We don’t yet know the implications of these changes in brain structure.
Clearly, this must be a starting point for us to explore in more depth the effects of weight, diet and exercise on the brain and memory.”

Despite the differences in brain volume, there were no deficits in cognitive abilities in overweight or obese people.

The study was published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging (Ronan et al., 2016).

Image credit: Dr Lisa Ronan

Overhyped Brain Training Turns Out To Have Unexpected Benefit

Until now brain training has proved more of a fad than a useful a treatment.

Until now brain training has proved more of a fad than a useful a treatment.

Computer-based brain training can halve the incidence of dementia, a surprising new study finds.

So far brain training has proved more of a fad than a useful a treatment.

But now research carried out over 10 years has found that a relatively small amount of brain training reduced older people’s chances of developing dementia dramatically.

For the study, healthy older adults did 10 brain training sessions of just over an hour.

They then had four further booster sessions a few years later.

Among the 2,832 people who started the study, 14% in the control group had developed dementia 10 years later.

This figure for those who had received the brain training was just 8.2%.

In general psychologists and others have found that brain training only produces relatively modest or inconsequential benefits.

So this study comes as a surprise.

Dr Jerri Edwards, the study’s first author, said:

“We believe this is the first time a cognitive training intervention has been shown to protect against cognitive impairment or dementia in a large, randomized, controlled trial.
Next, we’d like to get a better grasp on what exactly is the right amount of cognitive training to get the optimal benefits.”

The results could be down to the type of training that people were doing.

The training in this study encouraged them to speed up their processing.

Speed-of-processing training may be the key to the protective effect against dementia.

Alternatively, it may be that the brain training encouraged people to change their life in some way.

Some participants reported that the brain training had inspired them to keep intellectually engaged.

Dr Maria Carrillo, one of the study’s authors, said:

“The Alzheimer’s Association believes there is sufficiently strong evidence to conclude that lifelong learning and certain types of cognitive training may reduce the risk of cognitive decline.
These new 10-year findings are evidence that it may hold true for dementia as well as cognitive decline.”

The study was presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference 2016 in Toronto.

Thinking image from Shutterstock

First Alzheimer’s Vaccine Timescale Is Sooner Than You Think

Vaccine could be used to immunise healthy people or treat these already suffering.

Vaccine could be used to immunise healthy people or treat these already suffering.

A newly developed vaccine against Alzheimer’s disease could be ready in 3 to 5 years, scientists claim.

Alzheimer’s disease is newly diagnosed in around 48 million adults around the world each year.

It is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly.

Despite this there is currently only one drug that has so far been approved for treating dementia.

The new vaccine, though, targets proteins that build up in the brain that are thought to be the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, who led the research, said:

“If we are successful in pre-clinical trials, in three to five years we could be well on the way to one of the most important developments in recent medical history.
Along with our rapidly ageing populations, we now know that the explosion in type 2 diabetes in the West is likely to further dramatically fuel the projected rise in the number of cases of dementia globally, with diabetes being the major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.”

The vaccine, which is called ‘MultiTEP’ fights both beta and tau amyloid plaques that are linked to Alzheimer’s.

Professor Michael Agadjanyan, another study author, said the advantage of the vaccine is that it…

“do[es] not induce potentially harmful auto-reactive cellular immune responses, while still generating antibodies that bind strongly to the amyloid and tau pathological molecules in brain tissue from AD patients”.

Dr Anahit Ghochikyan, another study author, concluded:

“This study suggests that we can immunise patients at the early stages of AD, or even healthy people at risk for AD, using our anti-amyloid-beta vaccine, and, if the disease progresses, then vaccinate with another anti-tau vaccine to increase effectiveness.”

Preclinical trials have now been completed and the next stage is human trials.

The study was published in the journal Nature: Scientific Reports (Davtyan et al., 2016).

Brain image from Shutterstock

The Illicit Drug That Removes Toxic Alzheimer’s Proteins

The neuroprotective effect of this common drug on Alzheimer’s.

The neuroprotective effect of this common drug on Alzheimer’s.

Compounds in marijuana could help to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, new research finds.

The compounds, which include tetrahydrocannabinol, can promote the removal of a toxic protein related to Alzheimer’s disease.

It could help to explain why exercise — which produces natural endocannabinoids — is also protective against Alzheimer’s.

Professor David Schubert, senior author of the study, said:

“Although other studies have offered evidence that cannabinoids might be neuroprotective against the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, we believe our study is the first to demonstrate that cannabinoids affect both inflammation and amyloid beta accumulation in nerve cells.”

The tests were carried out on neurons grown in the laboratory.

Researchers found that exposing these cells to THC — the active component of marijuana — reduced the levels of the toxic protein linked to Alzheimer’s.

It also eliminated the inflammatory response.

Dr Antonio Currais, the study’s first author, explained:

“Inflammation within the brain is a major component of the damage associated with Alzheimer’s disease, but it has always been assumed that this response was coming from immune-like cells in the brain, not the nerve cells themselves.

When we were able to identify the molecular basis of the inflammatory response to amyloid beta, it became clear that THC-like compounds that the nerve cells make themselves may be involved in protecting the cells from dying.”

It is now yet known if THC could provide a useful therapy against Alzheimer’s.

This would need to be tested in clinical trials.

However, one small trial has already found that medical cannabis oil containing THC can help people with the symptoms of dementia (Shelef et al., 2016).

This trial found a significant reduction in psychological and behavioural symptoms of dementia such as agitation, aggression, delusions and apathy.

The study was published in the journal Aging and Mechanisms of Disease (Currais et al., 2016).

Alzheimer’s image from Shutterstock

Moderate Beer Intake Has A Surprising Advantage For The Brain

Study did not see the same benefit for wines and spirits.

Study did not see the same benefit for wines and spirits.

Light to moderate consumption of beer could decrease the risk of brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, new research finds.

The study looked at different types of alcohol intake — beer, wine and spirits — and the link to neuropathological signs of Alzheimer’s.

The study included data from 125 people in Finland who had died suddenly between 35 and 70 years old.

Their brains showed that those who drank light or moderate amounts of beer had less amyloid plaques.

Amyloid plaques are thought to be important in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Consumption of wines or spirits, though, was not linked to the amount of amyloid found in the brain.

This is not the first study to link alcohol intake with a lower risk of dementia.

Here is another study I reported recently:

“One drink a day (or less) for women and 1-2 drinks (or less) for men reduces the risk of developing dementia, a study has found.
It works out to between 8 and 14 drinks per week.
The study is one of the largest — and longest — to look at the connection between alcohol and dementia.
Over 3,000 people aged 75 or over took part in the research, which followed them for over six years.
The study found that those who drank moderately had a 37% reduction in the risk of developing dementia compared with those who did not drink at all.

The study was published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (Kok et al., 2016).

Gardening Is Great For Your Mental Health, Study Finds

The most mentally restorative types of gardens revealed by research.

The most mentally restorative types of gardens revealed by research.

Doctors should prescribe gardening for mental health problems dementia and cancer, a new report urges.

Gardening helps keep people active and increases their sense of well-being.

Gardening has also been linked to reduced depression, better balance and reduced stress and anxiety.

The UK report — aimed at the National Health Service of the UK — is just as relevant in the US.

On a similar note, recent research has found that people rate their gardens as significantly more restorative spaces than their lounges, terraces or balconies.

The most restorative gardens, though, are as close to nature as possible, the study also found.

The key thing, though, is the relationship you have with the garden.

People who got the most out of their gardens felt a real resonance with them.

Dr Renate Cervinka, the study’s first author, explained:

“As with any good relationship, it is important that the garden meets the user’s needs and that both garden and user continue to evolve together.
The message is that you should design your garden to be as close to nature as possible but, above all, you should enjoy it.”

To get the full restorative effect from the garden it is also important to be able to switch off, Dr Cervinka said:

“The degree of restoration depends to a large extent upon a person’s ability to switch off.”

The survey of 811 people aged from 16 to 82 found that gardens benefited people equally: whether men or women, old or young.

The report mentioned was by the King’s Fund health thinktank and the study was published in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening (Cervinka et al., 2016).

Dementia Caused By Out-Of-Control Immune System New Worldwide Research Finds

Scientist around the world are reaching a new conclusion about what causes dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Scientist around the world are reaching a new conclusion about what causes dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.

An out of control immune system could be the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, research finds.

There is now strong evidence that the body’s own immune system is causing cells in the brain to die.

Professor Robert Richards, who led the study, said:

“Dementia, including the most common form Alzheimer’s Disease, and related neurodegenerative conditions are dramatically rising in frequency as people live longer and our population ages.
[In the United States it] is predicting that by 2050 there will be almost double the number of people with dementia.
Currently we have no effective treatments to assist the millions of affected people, and these diseases are an enormous burden on families and the public health care system.”

Proteins called amyloid plaques were previously thought to be the culprits in Alzheimer’s, but the evidence is not strong enough.

Professor Richards said:

“Our interest in the body’s own (innate) immune system as the culprit began when we discovered that immune system agents become activated in a laboratory model of Huntington’s Disease.
Remarkably, researchers from other laboratories were at the same time reporting similar features in other neurodegenerative diseases.
When we pulled the evidence together, it made a very strong case that uncontrolled innate immunity is indeed the common cause.”

The immune system may malfunction as a result of various triggers such as toxins, genetic mutations or physical injuries.

Professor Richards said:

“We hope this new way of understanding neurodegeneration will lead to new treatments.
We now need to further investigate the immune signaling molecules, to identify new drug targets that will delay the onset and/or halt the progression of these devastating diseases.”

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

Brain image from Shutterstock

Yoga And Meditation Beat Crosswords And Memory Training For Preventing Memory Loss

Study included over-55s who had simple memory problems like forgetting names and appointments.

Study included over-55s who had simple memory problems like forgetting names and appointments.

Meditation and yoga are more effective than memory games or crosswords for fighting memory problems linked to Alzheimer’s, new research finds.

Researchers compared two groups of people aged over 55 who reported memory problems like losing things, forgetting names and appointments.

One group were given crosswords and memory training to do over 12 weeks.

The other group did both yoga and meditation for an equivalent amount of time.

Professor Helen Lavretsky, one of the study’s authors, explained the results:

“Memory training was comparable to yoga with meditation in terms of improving memory, but yoga provided a broader benefit than memory training because it also helped with mood, anxiety and coping skills.”

Both groups did one hour per week of their respective tasks.

Kundalini yoga was the type practiced in classes.

It involves focusing on breathing, chanting as well as the visualisation of light.

At home, people in the yoga group practiced 20 minutes of Kirtan Kriya meditation, which is a part of Kundalini yoga.

This type of yoga and meditation has been used in India for hundreds of years.

The researchers found that memory improvements were similar across both the groups.

However, people who did yoga and meditation had better visuo-spatial memory: the type used for navigating and recalling locations.

Yoga and meditation also had better results in reducing depression and anxiety.

It helped people develop higher levels of resilience and increased their ability to cope.

Brain scans showed significant differences in brain function in the yoga meditation group which were not seen in the others.

Mr Harris Eyre, the study’s first author, said:

“Historically and anecdotally, yoga has been thought to be beneficial in aging well, but this is the scientific demonstration of that benefit.
We’re converting historical wisdom into the high level of evidence required for doctors to recommend therapy to their patients.”

Professor Lavretsky concluded:

“If you or your relatives are trying to improve your memory or offset the risk for developing memory loss or dementia, a regular practice of yoga and meditation could be a simple, safe and low-cost solution to improving your brain fitness.”

The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Harris et al., 2016).