Category: Dementia

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).

Just six minutes of this exercise improves memory while reducing the risk of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

The reward for doing 6 minutes of high-intensity workout is a brain that is more resilient to aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.

According to a study, short intervals of vigorous exercise improve the production of a protein involved in brain function related to memory, learning, and flexibility.

Our brain has the ability to learn, adapt, and function through a process known as neuroplasticity.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is the particular protein that boosts neuroplasticity and protects neurons.

Past research has suggested that higher levels of BDNF enhance memory storage, memory formation, improve learning processes, and increase cognitive function.

BDNF’s capability of protecting nerve cells has encouraged researchers to find out if this protein can slow brain aging.

Dr Travis Gibbons, the study’s first author, said:

“BDNF has shown great promise in animal models, but pharmaceutical interventions have thus far failed to safely harness the protective power of BDNF in humans.

We saw the need to explore non-pharmacological approaches that can preserve the brain’s capacity which humans can use to naturally increase BDNF to help with healthy aging.”

The team wanted to see if either calorie restriction or exercise or both have any effect on BDNF production.

For this, they compared the factors below to examine the solo and joint impacts:

• 90 minutes of low-intensity cycling
• Six minutes of high-intensity cycling intervals
• Fasting for 20 hours
• Fasting with exercise

Short but vigorous exercise appeared to be the most effective approach for elevating BDNF levels compared with light exercise or fasting with or without prolonged low-intensity workouts.

The 6-minute high-intensity workouts increased serum concentration of BDNF by five times.

Prolonged low-intensity cycling showed a slight increase in serum levels, from 336 pg/L to 390 pg/L, while fasting had no effect.

Such contrasting findings might be due to a cerebral substrate switch, the brain’s fuel source shifting from glucose to either ketone bodies or lactate.

It appears that the brain switches from glucose to lactate during exercise, leading to production of BDNF, while fasting causes an increase in ketone body delivery to the brain.

Platelets are tiny blood cells that store BDNF and exercise increased numbers of platelets by 20 percent compared to fasting.

The team also want to find out whether intermittent fasting with exercise would have a greater influence on BDNF and cognitive functions.

Dr Gibbons added:

“We are now studying how fasting for longer durations, for example up to three days, influences BDNF.

We are curious whether exercising hard at the start of a fast accelerates the beneficial effects of fasting.

Fasting and exercise are rarely studied together.

We think fasting and exercise can be used in conjunction to optimize BDNF production in the human brain.”

The study was published in the journal The Journal of Physiology (Gibbons et al., 2023).