Category: Dementia

Reducing this behaviour could decrease the risk of dementia.

Too much sitting down is linked to a thinner brain in regions critical to memory formation.

Reducing sedentary behaviour could also decrease the risk of dementia.

Even high levels of physical activity were not enough to offset the damaging effects of sitting down for long periods, the researchers found.

The study’s authors conclude:

“In this preliminary study of middle-aged and older adults, self-reported hours per day spent sitting, but not physical activity level, was associated with less thickness in the MTL [the medial temporal lobe] substructures.

These findings are novel and require further exploration in longitudinal studies and analysis of mediating mechanisms.

Better understanding the effects of sedentary behavior on our brains is important given the global epidemic of physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyles.”

For the study, 35 middle-aged people were asked about their physical activity and had their brains scanned.

More sedentary people had thinner medial temporal lobes.

The medial temporal lobe is involved in the formation of new memories.

The authors write:

“Several lines of evidence suggest that sedentary behavior may be a risk factor for the development of age-related cognitive impairment.

A detailed projection of the effect of risk factors on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) prevalence suggests that approximately 13% of AD cases worldwide may be attributable to sedentary behavior.

A 25% reduction in sedentary behavior could potentially prevent more than 1 million AD cases globally.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Siddarth et al., 2018).

Around 5 million people in the US alone have Alzheimer’s.

Betanin — the compound in beets (beetroots) that gives them their red colour — may help protect the brain from ageing.

It suppresses the growth of clumps of protein that cause Alzheimer’s by up to 90%.

The discovery could lead to drugs that can help treat the long-term effects of Alzheimer’s.

The study builds on previous research that has found that beetroot juice can improve cognitive performance and blood flow in the brain.

Dr Li-June Ming, study author, said:

“Our data suggest that betanin, a compound in beet extract, shows some promise as an inhibitor of certain chemical reactions in the brain that are involved in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

This is just a first step, but we hope that our findings will encourage other scientists to look for structures similar to betanin that could be used to synthesize drugs that could make life a bit easier for those who suffer from this disease.”

Betanin targets the misfolds of a peptide called beta-amyloid, that is thought to be at the heart of Alzheimer’s.

In the disease, this causes clumps of the protein to form, which degenerates brain function.

Betanin, though, helps to suppress this misfolding by up to 90%.

Mr Darrell Cole Cerrato, study co-author, said:

“We can’t say that betanin stops the misfolding completely, but we can say that it reduces oxidation.

Less oxidation could prevent misfolding to a certain degree, perhaps even to the point that it slows the aggregation of beta-amyloid peptides, which is believed to be the ultimate cause of Alzheimer’s.”

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The study was presented the 255th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (Ming et al., 2018).

A version of the Mediterranean diet reduces memory loss and slows down brain shrinkage.

The green Mediterranean diet, which is plant-based and enriched with polyphenols and low in meat, appears to slow down age-related brain atrophy.

Although factors such as aging and obesity can cause shrinkage of the brain cells leading to cognitive decline and dementia, certain diets can help to prevent brain atrophy.

To test that, a clinical trial examined the impact of a high-polyphenol Mediterranean diet (GREEN-MED) on age-related brain atrophy.

The trial ran for 18 months involving 284 obese participants who were divided into three groups (healthy dietary guidelines, Mediterranean diet, and GREEN-MED) combined with aerobic exercise.

Participants also underwent whole-brain MRI scans at the start and end of the study.

All participants received physical activity (PA) programs and free gym membership.

Besides PA sessions, the healthy dietary guidelines group received regular nutritional counselling sessions promoting healthy diets.

The Mediterranean diet (MED) and the GREEN-MED groups had to follow a low calorie diet; 1200-1400 kcal per day for women and 1500-1800 kcal per day for men.

Their everyday diet was low in carbohydrates, rich in vegetables, including fish and poultry instead of red meat, and 28 grams of walnuts, containing 440 mg of polyphenols.

In addition to these, the GREEN-MED group drank 3 to 4 cups of green tea per day, and their dinner was a green shake of Mankai duckweed containing 800 mg of polyphenols.

The results showed that brain shrinkage was reduced significantly in those who followed either the MED or GREEN-MED diets.

The effect was even greater in the GREEN-MED group, particularly for those over age 50, suggesting the diet is neuroprotective.

The study’s authors wrote:

“The beneficial association between MED and age-related neurodegeneration might be partially explained by the abundance of polyphenols in plant-based food sources which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory metabolites.

Polyphenols can cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) reduce neuroinflammation and induce cell proliferation
and adult-onset neurogenesis in the hippocampus.”

The authors concluded:

“Our findings might suggest a simple, safe, and promising avenue to slow age-related neurodegeneration by adhering to a green-Mediterranean diet.”

A different study also found that the Green Med diet is better than the traditional Mediterranean diet since it reduces the odds of developing diabetes and heart disease even more.

The study was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Kaplan et al., 2022).