Discover which everyday snacks might be harming your brain health.
While the drink used to be thought safe for brain health, the latest research finds otherwise.
While the drink used to be thought safe for brain health, the latest research finds otherwise.
Drinking as little as three glasses of wine or three cans of beer per week is linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, research finds.
People who drank more than this amount of any alcohol, the study found, had elevated levels of iron in their brains.
Iron accumulation has been found in both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease and may help to explain cognitive decline.
The research included over 20,000 people included in the UK Biobank study.
All had reported their alcohol consumption and had their brains scanned, while 7,000 had had MRIs of their livers to assess iron levels.
Average alcohol intake was around 18 UK units, which is equivalent to over 7 cans of beer or 6 large glasses of wine.
The results showed that anything above 7 units per week was linked to high levels of iron in the basal ganglia, a group of neurons involved in a whide range of cognitive functions, such as learning, movement and the emotions.
Dr Anya Topiwala, the study’s first author, said:
“In the largest study to date, we found drinking greater than 7 units of alcohol weekly associated with iron accumulation in the brain.
Higher brain iron in turn linked to poorer cognitive performance.
Iron accumulation could underlie alcohol-related cognitive decline.”
In the US, 7 units is this is about 4 standard drinks, which are 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine or 1.5 oz of a distilled spirit.
While moderate drinking used to be thought safe for brain health, the latest research finds otherwise.
Lower and lower amounts of alcohol have been linked to cognitive decline and neurodegeneration.
For example, as little as one alcoholic drink per day has been linked to brain shrinkage.
People who have as little as a glass of wine or pint of beer each day show greater signs of brain shrinkage with age.
Averaging four drinks a day was linked by this study to the equivalent of 10 years of brain aging.
The more people drink, therefore, the stronger the association gets between alcohol and brain shrinkage.
And alcohol continues to cause brain damage even six weeks after giving it up.
The study was published in the journal PLOS Medicine (Topiwala et al., 2022).
Some signs of the vitamin deficiency include include poor sleep, symptoms of depression, headaches, weak muscles and tiredness.
Some signs of the vitamin deficiency include include poor sleep, symptoms of depression, headaches, weak muscles and tiredness.
Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of dementia, research finds.
Adequate levels of vitamin D could prevent almost one-in-five cases of dementia from occurring, the study estimates.
People with low levels of vitamin D have lower brain volumes and are also at a higher risk of strokes — a condition in which the blood supply is cut off to part of the brain.
Professor Elina Hyppönen, study co-author, said:
“Vitamin D is a hormone precursor that is increasingly recognised for widespread effects, including on brain health, but until now it has been very difficult to examine what would happen if we were able to prevent vitamin D deficiency.”
Researchers examined data from almost 300,000 people in the UK Biobank study.
A genetic analysis of the data suggested that low levels of vitamin D are causing the increase in dementia risk.
Professor Hyppönen said:
“Our study is the first to examine the effect of very low levels of vitamin D on the risks of dementia and stroke, using robust genetic analyses among a large population.
In some contexts, where vitamin D deficiency is relatively common, our findings have important implications for dementia risks.
Indeed, in this UK population we observed that up to 17 per cent of dementia cases might have been avoided by boosting vitamin D levels to be within a normal range.”
Worldwide, vitamin D deficiency is very common.
Changing this could help to reduce the dementia risk for many, explained Professor Hyppönen:
“Dementia is a progressive and debilitating disease that can devastate individuals and families alike.
If we’re able to change this reality through ensuring that none of us is severely vitamin D deficient, it would also have further benefits and we could change the health and wellbeing for thousands.
Most of us are likely to be ok, but for anyone who for whatever reason may not receive enough vitamin D from the sun, modifications to diet may not be enough, and supplementation may well be needed.”
Around one-in-five people are thought to have a vitamin D deficiency.
Some signs of vitamin D deficiency include include poor sleep, symptoms of depression, headaches, weak muscles and tiredness.
A deficiency in this vitamin is particularly prevalent among people with darker skin, who do not leave the house or who are pregnant or have problems with absorption.
Vitamin D supplementation is one option for correcting the problem.
Around 10 mcg per day is the dose often recommended.
A change of diet can also help the problem.
Vitamin D is particularly abundant in foods like milk, liver, fatty fish, and egg yolks.
The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Navale et al., 2022).
Personality can help sustain thinking skills in the face of brain aging.
Personality can help sustain thinking skills in the face of brain aging.
A conscientious personality helps protect against brain aging, a study finds.
Conscientious people tend to be well-organised, self-disciplined and motivated for achievement.
People who are higher on this personality trait, which is one of the five major aspects of personality, tend to have greater cognitive resilience.
Cognitive resilience is the ability to maintain strong thinking skills despite deterioration in the brain that occurs naturally with age.
Dr Eileen Graham, the study’s first author, said:
“These findings provide evidence that it is possible for older adults to live with the neuropathology associated with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias while maintaining relatively healthy levels of cognitive function.”
In contrast, a neurotic personality can increase the risk of worse cognitive functioning, the research also found.
People who are neurotic tend to be moody, impulsive and anxious.
They also tend to have lower cognitive resilience, meaning they find it harder to resist the brain’s deterioration with age.
Dr Graham said:
“Our study shows personality traits are related to how well people are able to maintain their cognitive function in spite of developing neuropathology.
Since it is possible for personality to change, both volitionally and through interventions, it’s possible that personality could be used to identify those who are at risk and implement early interventions to help optimize function throughout old age.”
The results come from a study of 1,375 people whose brains were examined for damage after they died.
These results were compared to years of tests previously done on their psychological and cognitive functioning.
It is one of the first studies to show that personality can help people to sustain their thinking skills despite brain aging.
The study was published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B (Graham et al., 2020).
Your career choice can partly determine your brain’s fate in old age.
Sleep pattern lowered levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.
Sleep pattern lowered levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.
Sleep disruptions similar to jet lag could cause memory problems linked to Alzheimer’s disease, research finds.
It’s well-known by scientists that there’s a link between Alzheimer’s and sleep, but not what causes what.
Professor Gregory Brewer, who led the research, said:
“The issue is whether poor sleep accelerates the development of Alzheimer’s disease or vice versa.
It’s a chicken-or-egg dilemma, but our research points to disruption of sleep as the accelerator of memory loss.”
The research gave jet-lag to mice that had been genetically engineered to suffer from Alzheimer’s.
They did this by moving the dark period every three days to a different time — which is what causes jet-lag.
The jet-lagged mice had lower levels of an antioxidant that helps fight cellular damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer’s.
This suggests it could be poor sleep that is contributing to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Professor Brewer said:
“This study suggests that clinicians and caregivers should add good sleep habits to regular exercise and a healthy diet to maximize good memory.”
Many other studies have found a link between dementia and sleep.
People who sleep for too little or too long are at a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
Indeed, people who sleep more than 9 hours a night have double the risk of developing dementia, one study found.
However, those who sleep for between 5.5 and 7.5 hours per night do not see declines in their cognitive health, even when suffering the early effects of Alzheimer’s disease.
Those sleeping longer also have lower brain volumes.
Also, getting less REM sleep — the phase in which we dream — is linked to dementia.
During sleep the brain cycles between periods of deep sleep and then up towards shallower periods of sleep in which we tend to dream, whether we remember those dreams or not.
During REM sleep the eyes move rapidly from side-to-side (hence Rapid Eye Movement Sleep).
Sleep apnea has also been linked to developing Alzheimer’s disease.
The most common signs of sleep apnea, which affects 30 percent of older people, include:
The study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (Brewer et al., 2015).
A diet that not only aids weight loss but also preserves precious memory function.
Brain regions responsible for cognition were 14 percent larger in those who ate fish cooked with this method.
Brain regions responsible for cognition were 14 percent larger in those who ate fish cooked with this method.
Eating both baked and broiled fish once a week protects the brain from loosing gray matter with age, according to new research.
The findings found no link between eating fried fish and better brain health.
Dr Cyrus Raji, who led the study, explained:
“Baked or broiled fish contains higher levels of omega-3s than fried fish because the fatty acids are destroyed in the high heat of frying, so we took that into consideration…”
The data came from 260 people who had their brains scanned and who also provided information on what they had been eating.
They were all part of a 10-year study starting in 1989 which was originally designed to reveal the lifestyle factors important in cardiovascular health.
The study found that people who ate baked or broiled fish had, on average, 4.3% larger brain volumes in the areas responsible for memory and 14% larger volumes in areas responsible for cognition.
Professor James T. Becker, who co-authored the study, explained the results:
“Our study shows that people who ate a diet that included baked or broiled, but not fried, fish have larger brain volumes in regions associated with memory and cognition.
We did not find a relationship between omega-3 levels and these brain changes, which surprised us a little.
It led us to conclude that we were tapping into a more general set of lifestyle factors that were affecting brain health of which diet is just one part.”
Omega-3 fatty acids, which are also found in seeds, nuts and certain oils, have been repeatedly found to enhance brain health.
However, in this study there was no link between actual omega-3 levels in the body and changes in the brain.
Dr Becker said:
“This suggests that lifestyle factors, in this case eating fish, rather than biological factors contribute to structural changes in the brain.
A confluence of lifestyle factors likely are responsible for better brain health, and this reserve might prevent or delay cognitive problems that can develop later in life.”
The study was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (Raji et al., 2014).
Dementia risk can be reduced 40 percent in this common way.
Dementia risk can be reduced 40 percent in this common way.
Avoiding loneliness reduces dementia risk by 40 percent, research finds.
The study helps underline the striking effect of loneliness on health.
People can still feel lonely despite regular contact with friends, family and colleagues, research shows.
Loneliness can be a feeling of not fitting in with those around you — despite having a lot of social contact.
Dr Angelina Sutin, who led the study, said:
“We are not the first people to show that loneliness is associated with increased risk of dementia.
But this is by far the largest sample yet, with a long follow-up.
And the population was more diverse.”
The study followed 12,000 Americans over 50-years-old for up to 10 years.
All reported on their levels of loneliness and took cognitive tests.
During the study, 1,104 people developed dementia.
The results revealed that those who reported the highest levels of loneliness were more likely to develop dementia.
Dr Sutin explained that loneliness is different from social isolation:
“It’s a feeling that you do not fit in or do not belong with the people around you.
You can have somebody who lives alone, who doesn’t have very much contact with people, but has enough—and that fills their internal need for socializing.
So even though objectively you might think that person is socially isolated, they don’t feel lonely.
The flip side is that you can be around a lot of people and be socially engaged and interactive and still feel like you don’t belong.
From the outside it looks like you have great social engagement, but the subjective feeling is that you’re not part of the group.”
Loneliness may be linked to dementia through a number of paths:
Escaping loneliness is not easy, but it is at least amenable to change, Dr Sutin said:
“Loneliness is a modifiable risk factor.
Most people might describe periods where they felt lonely and then periods where they didn’t feel lonely.
So just because you feel lonely now, you don’t always have to feel this way.”
The study was published in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences (Sutin et al., 2018).
It takes 20-30 years for the brain changes leading to Alzheimer’s to occur.
It takes 20-30 years for the brain changes leading to Alzheimer’s to occur.
The very best lifestyle change a person can make in midlife to protect against cognitive decline later is taking more exercise.
The results come from a study of 387 women in Australia who were followed from 1992 when they were between 45 and 55-years-old.
They were followed for over 20 years.
The researchers recorded all sorts of lifestyle factors including:
Each person was given simple tests of memory, such as the ability to remember a list of ten unrelated items.
Dr Cassandra Szoeke, who led the study, said:
“We now know that brain changes associated with dementia take 20 to 30 years to develop.
The evolution of cognitive decline is slow and steady, so we needed to study people over a long time period.
We used a verbal memory test because that’s one of the first things to decline when you develop Alzheimer’s Disease.”
Out of all the lifestyle changes, the number one protective factor was exercise.
It didn’t matter what type — from walking the dog to climbing a mountain — exercise was the lifestyle factor that provided the greatest protective effect against memory loss.
Dr Szoeke said:
“The message from our study is very simple.
Do more physical activity, it doesn’t matter what, just move more and more often.
It helps your heart, your body and prevents obesity and diabetes and now we know it can help your brain.
It could even be something as simple as going for a walk, we weren’t restrictive in our study about what type.”
You should start as early as possible, Dr Szoeke said:
“We expected it was the healthy habits later in life that would make a difference but we were surprised to find that the effect of exercise was cumulative.
So every one of those 20 years mattered.
If you don’t start at 40, you could miss one or two decades of improvement to your cognition because every bit helps.
That said, even once you’re 50 you can make up for lost time.”
The study was published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry (Szoeke et al., 2016).
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