Category: Dementia

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).

Current tests cannot spot the disease until it is too late.

Alzheimer’s can be diagnosed early with a non-invasive eye test, research finds.

The new way of imaging the retina (called optical coherence tomography angiography) allows scientists to spot tell-tale changes to blood vessels in the back of the eye.

The test can spot patients with a family history of Alzheimer’s but who are not yet experiencing any symptoms, according to the latest research.

It is also capable of telling apart those with mild cognitive impairment from those with Alzheimer’s.

Early diagnosis is critical to the treatment of Alzheimer’s.

Current tests cannot spot the disease until it is too late.

Dr Ygal Rotenstreich, the lead researcher, said:

“A brain scan can detect Alzheimer’s when the disease is well beyond a treatable phase.

We need treatment intervention sooner.

These patients are at such high-risk.”

The test works because the brain is connected to the eye by the optic nerve.

Changes in the retina and the blood vessels reflect changes in the brain.

Professor Sharon Fekrat, study co-author, said:

“This project meets a huge unmet need.

It’s not possible for current techniques like a brain scan or lumbar puncture (spinal tap) to screen the number of patients with this disease.

Almost everyone has a family member or extended family affected by Alzheimer’s.

We need to detect the disease earlier and introduce treatments earlier.”

The study was published in the journal Ophthalmology Retina (Yoon et al., 2019).

These activities can help to delay the onset of dementia by as much as 5 years.

Simulating mental activities like card games, writing letters, doing puzzles and reading can help delay the onset of dementia by 5 years, a study finds.

People in the study who took part in these types of activities a few times a week did not develop dementia until 94-years-old.

However, those who only did these activities a few times a year developed dementia, on average, at 89-years-old.

The research underlines the importance of keeping the brain active with age.

Other ways to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s include:

1. Eating a high quality diet, such as the MIND diet.
2. Giving up smoking — even after 60 — benefits physical and cognitive health.
3. Exercise: 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise is a good weekly target.
4. Limit alcohol to light or moderate intake. In the US, moderate drinking is no more than 2 standard drinks per day for men and 1 for women (i.e. 2 glasses of wine for men and 1 for women).

Dr Robert S. Wilson, the study’s first author, said:

“The good news is that it’s never too late to start doing the kinds of inexpensive, accessible activities we looked at in our study.

Our findings suggest it may be beneficial to start doing these things, even in your 80s, to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s dementia.”

For the study, almost 2,000 people, average age 80, were tracked over 7 years.

None had dementia at the start of the study and they were given examinations every year.

They all rated how much they participated in mentally stimulating activities, including answering questions such as:

• “During the past year, how often did you read books?”
• “During the past year, how often did you play games like checkers, board games, cards or puzzles?”

Dr Wilson explained the results:

“Our study shows that people who engage in more cognitively stimulating activities may be delaying the age at which they develop dementia.

It is important to note, after we accounted for late life level of cognitive activity, neither education nor early life cognitive activity were associated with the age at which a person developed Alzheimer’s dementia.

Our research suggests that the link between cognitive activity and the age at which a person developed dementia is mainly driven by the activities you do later in life.”

Ruling out reverse causation

The researchers tested an alternative hypothesis that low cognitive activity may be a sign of dementia rather than the cause.

They looked at the brains of 695 people who died during the study.

However, there was no link between how cognitively active people were and markers of Alzheimer’s in their brains.

This suggests that cognitive activity is driving a lower Alzheimer’s risk, rather than the other way around.

The study was published in the journal Neurology (Wilson et al., 2021).

Symptoms of dementia include memory loss, problems with language and changes in mood.

Drinking tea or coffee may reduce the risk of stroke and dementia by around one-third, research finds.

Dementia is a degradation of brain function and overall health that comes with age.

Symptoms include memory loss, problems with language and changes in mood.

Strokes are when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off temporarily, which can cause brain damage.

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia.

The benefits of tea may come from the flavonoids it contains.

Flavonoids are antioxidants and part of the polyphenol class found in plants and known to have several health benefits and help prevent various diseases.

Tea, berries and apples can all help ward off dementia, another study has found.

Older people eating more flavonoid-rich foods reduced their dementia risk by up to four times, that study found.

Drinking tea has also been linked to better overall brain health.

People had better connected brains if they drank all types of tea, including oolong, black or green tea, at least four times a week over a 25 year period.

Regular tea drinkers have better organised brain regions.

Moderate consumption

Chinese researchers used data from over 350,000 people in the Biobank project.

The Biobank is a long-term project that tracks the health and well-being of volunteers in the UK.

Health data for participants was tracked over at least 10 years, including their intake of tea and coffee.

The results showed that people drinking 2-3 cups of coffee or 3-5 cups of tea per day had the lowest risk of stroke or dementia.

This amount of tea lowered the risk of stroke by 32 percent and dementia by 28 percent.

The study’s authors write:

“Our findings suggested that moderate consumption of coffee and tea separately or in combination were associated with lower risk of stroke and dementia.”

The study was published in the journal PLoS Medicine (Zhang et al., 2021).

The extracts work by preventing the build up of sticky amyloid beta in the brain.

Compounds found in carrots and green tea have been shown to reverse Alzheimer’s, research finds.

The plant-based treatment was able to completely restore the memories of mice in the study.

Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) is a compound found in green tea.

Meanwhile, ferulic acid is found in rice, tomatoes, carrots, oats and wheat.

For the study, mice genetically programmed to develop the disease were given plant-based supplements for three months.

Although mouse studies often do not translate into humans, the findings are still promising, said Professor Terrence Town, study co-author:

“You don’t have to wait 10 to 12 years for a designer drug to make it to market; you can make these dietary changes today.

I find that very encouraging.”

For the research, 32 mice with Alzheimer’s symptoms were randomly assigned to different diets.

Four groups were fed with different combinations of EGCG and ferulic acid.

The dosages were 30 mg per kilogram of body weight.

This amount could easily be consumed by a human as part of a healthy diet or in the form of supplements.

The mice were given a range of tests of their memory and learning.

These are the mouse-equivalent of tests given to assess dementia in humans.

Professor Town explained the results:

“After three months, combination treatment completely restored working memory and the Alzheimer’s mice performed just as well as the healthy comparison mice.”

The group of mice that did best were those that were given both compounds together.

The two compounds appear to work by preventing the build up of sticky amyloid beta in the brain.

These are the clumps of protein seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

The compounds also reduced neuroinflammation and oxidative stress.

The study was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (Mori et al., 2019).

People eating this berry showed a remarkable improvement in their neural functioning, memory for everyday events and increased blood flow in the brain.

As well as lowering levels of “bad” cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein), cranberries could prevent dementia by improving memory and enhancing brain function.

According to a study, one cup of cranberries a day will reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disorders in people aged 50 and older.

The berry is rich in polyphenols including proanthocyanidins, anthocyanins, hydroxycinnamic acids, and flavonols.

Polyphenols are powerful antioxidants known for their anti-inflammatory and blood pressure lowering effects.

A previous study on rats suggests that polyphenols have the ability to improve nervous system function and brain responses to stress.

The recent study examined the effects of cranberries on human cognitive function.

It involved adults aged 50 and older who were tracked for 12 weeks.

Dr David Vauzour, the study’s senior author, said:

“Dementia is expected to affect around 152 million people by 2050.

There is no known cure, so it is crucial that we seek modifiable lifestyle interventions, such as diet, that could help lessen disease risk and burden.

Past studies have shown that higher dietary flavonoid intake is associated with slower rates of cognitive decline and dementia.

And foods rich in anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins, which give berries their red, blue, or purple colour, have been found to improve cognition.

Cranberries are rich in these micronutrients and have been recognized for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

We wanted to find out more about how cranberries could help reduce age-related neurodegeneration.”

Th study divided people into two groups; one received two sachets (each 4.5 g) of freeze-dried cranberry powder a day, an equivalent to 100 g or one cup of fresh cranberries, and the other group took a placebo.

Participants who were on cranberry supplementation showed a remarkable improvement in their neural functioning, visual episodic memory (memory for everyday events), and increased blood flow in the brain as well as low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol reduction.

Dr Vauzour said:

“We found that the participants who consumed the cranberry powder showed significantly improved episodic memory performance in combination with improved circulation of essential nutrients such as oxygen and glucose to important parts of the brain that support cognition — specifically memory consolidation and retrieval.

The cranberry group also exhibited a significant decrease in LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol levels, known to contribute to atherosclerosis — the thickening or hardening of the arteries caused by a build-up of plaque in the inner lining of an artery.

This supports the idea that cranberries can improve vascular health and may in part contribute to the improvement in brain perfusion and cognition.

Demonstrating in humans that cranberry supplementation can improve cognitive performance and identifying some of the mechanisms responsible is an important step for this research field.

The findings of this study are very encouraging, especially considering that a relatively short 12-week cranberry intervention was able to produce significant improvements in memory and neural function.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition (Flanagan et al., 2022).