Category: Dementia

Memory problems may not be the first sign of Alzheimer’s.

Difficulty creating mental maps of new surroundings could be the earliest sign of Alzheimer’s, research finds.

The sign is present long before it is possible to clinically diagnose Alzheimer’s.

Dr Denise Head, one of the study’s authors, said:

“These findings suggest that navigational tasks designed to assess a cognitive mapping strategy could represent a powerful new tool for detecting the very earliest Alzheimer’s disease-related changes in cognition.

The spatial navigation task used in this study to assess cognitive map skills was more sensitive at detecting preclinical Alzheimer’s disease than the standard psychometric task of episodic memory.”

The study involved people trying to navigate a maze on a computer.

The maze had a series of different landmarks and wallpaper patterns to aid navigation.

People were tested on how well they could navigate a learned route and how well they created a mental map of the maze.

Dr Head explained the results:

“People with cerebrospinal markers for preclinical Alzheimer’s disease demonstrated significant difficulties only when they had to form a cognitive map of the environment — an allocentric, place-learning navigation process associated with hippocampal function.

This same preclinical Alzheimer’s disease group showed little or no impairment on route learning tasks — an egocentric navigation process more closely associated with caudate function.”

Study participants with preclinical Alzheimer’s also found it harder to learn the locations of objects in the maze.

Dr Head concluded:

“These findings suggest that navigational tasks designed to assess a cognitive mapping strategy could represent a powerful tool for detecting the very earliest Alzheimer’s disease-related changes in cognition.”

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

Those with the highest levels of calories burned saw a 50% reduction in their risk of Alzheimer’s.

Almost any type of physical activity that makes your heart pump can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s, new research finds.

The more calories people burned during aerobic activity, the lower their risk of Alzheimer’s, the scientists found.

There were 15 leisure-time activities measured in the study:

• Swimming,
• hiking,
• aerobics,
• jogging,
• tennis,
• racquetball,
• walking,
• gardening,
• mowing,
• raking,
• golfing,
• bicycling,
• dancing,
• calisthenics,
• and riding an exercise cycle.

The study involved 876 people at four different locations in the US.

The average age was 78 and all were followed up over 30 years.

Those with the highest levels of calories burned saw a 50% reduction in their risk of Alzheimer’s.

The study’s authors write:

“…approximately 13% of AD [Alzheimer’s Disease] cases worldwide may be attributable to sedentary behavior.

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

Brain scans also revealed that those exercising more had larger volumes in the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes including the hippocampus (the brain’s memory centre).

Dr Cyrus A. Raji, the study’s first author, said:

“This is the first study in which we have been able to correlate the predictive benefit of different kinds of physical activity with the reduction of Alzheimer’s risk through specific relationships with better brain volume in such a large sample.”

Professor George Perry, Editor of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, said:

“Currently the greatest promise in Alzheimer’s disease research is lifestyle intervention including increased exercise.

[This is] a landmark study that links exercise to increases in grey mater and opens the field of lifestyle intervention to objective biological measurement.”

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

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Gray matter ageing slowed significantly by these two factors.

Staying in school and taking the stairs are two things that can help keep your brain young, new research finds.

The more years of school a person completes, the younger their brain appears.

Brain age decreases almost one year for each additional year of education.

For each flight of stairs climbed daily, brain age decreases by just over half a year.

Dr Jason Steffener, the study’s first author, said:

“There already exist many ‘Take the stairs’ campaigns in office environments and public transportation centres.

This study shows that these campaigns should also be expanded for older adults, so that they can work to keep their brains young.”

The research used brain imaging of 331 adults to reach these conclusions.

They looked at any gray matter loss and their education and exercise levels.

Dr Steffener said:

“This study shows that education and physical activity affect the difference between a physiological prediction of age and chronological age, and that people can actively do something to help their brains stay young.

In comparison to many other forms of physical activity, taking the stairs is something most older adults can and already do at least once a day, unlike vigorous forms of physical activity.

This is encouraging because it demonstrates that a simple thing like climbing stairs has great potential as an intervention tool to promote brain health.”

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

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The snake venom originally came from a pit viper, which is found in South and Central America.

A drug contained in snake oil may help in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.

The drug may help the body’s natural defences against the build-up of amyloid plaques in the brain.

Amyloid plaques are lumps of protein which are usually kept in check by enzymes.

In people with Alzheimer’s, though, these enzymes do not do their job.

The molecule, which was discovered in snake venom, could help activate the enzymes and break down the plaques.

The snake venom originally came from a pit viper, which is found in South and Central America.

This is the result of a long search stretching back years by Dr Sanjaya Kuruppu.

The scientists have now developed a synthetic version and found that it works on human cells in the lab.

Although it might sound unusual, snake venoms are actually a common inspiration for pharmaceutical research.

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

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Over 3,000 people had their personality, memory and thinking skills measured across 25 years.

Young adults who are hostile or aggressive and find it difficult to deal with stress have worse memory and thinking skills later on, a study finds.

The study surveyed 3,126 people who were asked about their:

• personality,
• attitudes,
• memory and thinking skills,
• aggressive behaviours and any trust issues,
• as well as how they coped with stress.

People were asked first when they were around around 25-years-old and then followed up when they were around 50.

Dr Lenore J. Launer, one of the study’s authors, said:

“We may not think of our personality traits as having any bearing on how well we think or remember things, but we found that the effect of having a hostile attitude and poor coping skills on thinking ability was similar to the effect of more than a decade of aging.”

The results showed that those with the highest levels of hostility performed the worst on tests of memory and thinking skills.

The study only shows a link between hostility and poor cognitive skills, not necessarily that one causes the other.

Dr Launer said:

“If this link is found in other studies, it will be important to understand whether these personality traits are amenable to change that would lead to interventions that promote positive social interactions and coping skills to see if they could play a role in reducing people’s risk for memory and thinking problems in middle age.”

The study was published in the journal Neurology (White et al., 2016).

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They could slow the ageing process and delay the onset of debilitating cognitive symptoms.

Blueberries, strawberries and walnuts could help protect the brain from the consequences of ageing, new research finds.

The antioxidants in both can help fight age-related changes in the brain like the loss of synapses.

Dr James Joseph, who led the research on walnuts, said:

“The good news, is that it appears that compounds found in fruits and vegetables — and, as we have shown in our research, walnuts — may provide the necessary protection to prevent the demise of cognitive and motor function in aging.”

Dr Joseph’s study involved feeding older rats with varying amounts of walnuts.

The research found that the walnuts helped to reduce both cognitive and motor problems that the mice had naturally developed with age.

Dr Joseph said:

“Importantly, this information, coupled with our previous studies, shows that the addition of walnuts, berries, and grape juice to the diet may increase ‘health span’ in aging and provide a ‘longevity dividend’ or economic benefit for slowing the aging process by reducing the incidence and delaying the onset of debilitating degenerative disease.”

The study was published in the journal The Journal of Nutrition (Joseph et al., 2009).

Image credit: Liz Jones

Plus four food types linked to higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

People who eat more nuts, fish, poultry and certain fruits and vegetables have a lower risk of Alzheimer’s, research finds.

Set against this, those who eat more red meats, organ meats, butter and high-fat dairy products have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s.

The conclusions come from a study of 2,148 adults aged over 65 published in the journal Archives of Neurology.

All lived in New York and did not have dementia.

They were followed over a period of around four years.

Their diet was studied and their dementia risk assessed every 1.5 years.

253 people had developed Alzheimer’s at follow-up.

However, one dietary pattern apparently provided the best protection against the disease.

Those who had a higher intake of the following had a lower risk of Alzheimer’s:

• salad dressing,
• nuts,
• fish,
• tomatoes,
• poultry,
• fruits,
• and cruciferous and dark and green leafy vegetables, like cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.

The study’s authors write:

“Epidemiological evidence linking diet, one of the most important modifiable environmental factors, and risk of Alzheimer’s disease is rapidly increasing.

However, current literature regarding the impact of individual nutrients or food items on Alzheimer’s disease risk is inconsistent, partly because humans eat meals with complex combinations of nutrients or food items that are likely to be synergistic.”

The dietary benefits are likely related to essential vitamins and minerals.

The study’s authors write:

“For example, vitamin B12 and folate are homocysteine-related vitamins that may have an impact on Alzheimer’s disease via their ability of reducing circulating homocysteine levels, vitamin E might prevent Alzheimer’s disease via its strong antioxidant effect and fatty acids may be related to dementia and cognitive function through atherosclerosis, thrombosis or inflammation via an effect on brain development and membrane functioning or via accumulation of beta-amyloid.”

Alzheimer’s photo from Shutterstock

Certain kinds of cholesterol linked to amyloid plaques — a toxic substance associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

High levels of ‘HDL’ or the ‘good type’ of cholesterol are good for the brain as well as the heart, recent research finds.

Similarly, the ‘bad type’ of cholesterol (LDL) is worse for brain health.

The study found links between these cholesterol levels and amyloid plaques, a toxic substance associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Professor Bruce Reed, who led the study, said:

“Our study shows that both higher levels of HDL — good — and lower levels of LDL — bad — cholesterol in the bloodstream are associated with lower levels of amyloid plaque deposits in the brain.

Unhealthy patterns of cholesterol could be directly causing the higher levels of amyloid known to contribute to Alzheimer’s, in the same way that such patterns promote heart disease.”

For HDL, a level of 60 milligrams per decilitre of blood or higher is best.

For LDL, a level of 70  milligrams per decilitre of blood or lower is recommended.

Typical ways to increase HDL levels include:

• Weight loss
• Exercise
• Eating more fibre
• Omega-3 fatty acids

Professor Charles DeCarli,  director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center and study co-author, said:

“If you have an LDL above 100 or an HDL that is less than 40, even if you’re taking a statin drug, you want to make sure that you are getting those numbers into alignment.

You have to get the HDL up and the LDL down.”

The study involved 74 people over 70 years-of-age — around half of whom had mild dementia.

Professor Reed said:

“This study provides a reason to certainly continue cholesterol treatment in people who are developing memory loss regardless of concerns regarding their cardiovascular health.

It also suggests a method of lowering amyloid levels in people who are middle aged, when such build-up is just starting.

If modifying cholesterol levels in the brain early in life turns out to reduce amyloid deposits late in life, we could potentially make a significant difference in reducing the prevalence of Alzheimer’s, a goal of an enormous amount of research and drug development effort.”

The study was published in the journal JAMA Neurology (Reed et al., 2013).

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