A 25-year study of diet and aging in 76 rhesus monkeys shows a significant reduction in mortality and in age-associated diseases among those on calorie-restricted diets.
Latest Research News
An 11-week trial involving 54 young, healthy men and women engaging in an endurance training program, has found that markers for the production of new muscle mitochondria only increased in the group not taking vitamin C and E supplements. It’s possible that high doses of vitamins C and E act as antioxidants and take away some of the oxidative stress needed to develop muscular endurance.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/w-vca013014.php
A survey of 7,072 older adults in six provinces across China, with one rural and one urban community in each province, has identified 359 older adults with dementia and 328 with depression. There were only 26 participants who had doctor-diagnosed dementia reported and 26 who had doctor-diagnosed depression. Overall, 93% of dementia cases and 93% of depression were not detected.
Undetected dementia was strongly associated with low socioeconomic status such as a low educational and occupational class, and living in a rural area.
Three recent studies point to the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness for older adults wanting to prevent cognitive decline.
A small study involving 50 children and teens living in Mexico City (aged 13.4 ± 4.8 years) has found that those with the 'Alzheimer's gene' APOEε4 (22 of the 50) were more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution on cognition. Those with the gene variant had a reduced NAA/Cr ratio in the right frontal white matter (as those with Alzheimer's do), poorer attention and short-term memory, and below-average scores in Verbal and Full Scale IQ (>10 points), compared to those with the 'normal' ε3 variant.
Mindfulness meditation is associated with various positive benefits, one of which is improved attention, but it might not be all good. A new study suggests that it may have negative cognitive consequences.
The study included three experiments, in the first two of which undergraduates carried out a 15-minute guided exercise: one group was instructed to focus attention on their breathing without judgment (mindfulness group); the other group was told to think about whatever came to mind (mind-wandering group; the control).
I've reported before on studies showing how gesturing can help children with mathematics and problem-solving. A new Australian study involving children aged 9-13 has found that finger-tracing has a similar effect.
Students who used their finger to trace over practice examples while simultaneously reading geometry or arithmetic material were able to complete the problems more quickly and correctly than those who didn't use the same technique.
A randomized clinical trial of 268 active-duty personnel seeking treatment for PTSD has found that individual sessions of cognitive processing therapy were twice as effective as group sessions.
Participants were assigned to CPT in either 90-minute group sessions or 60-minute individual sessions twice weekly for six weeks. PTSD severity was reduced significantly more in those receiving individual treatment, however improvements were maintained during the six-month follow-up in both groups. Depression and suicidal ideation also improved equally with both forms of CPT.
A clinical trial involving 9361 older adults (50+) with hypertension but without diabetes or history of stroke has found that intensive control of blood pressure significantly reduced the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment.
While there was also a 15% reduction in dementia, this result did not reach statistical significance. This may have been due to the small number of new cases of dementia in the study groups.
Brain scans from over 4,000 people, across the age range (9 months to 94 years) and including 1,385 Alzheimer's patients, has revealed an early divergence between those who go on to develop Alzheimer’s and those who age normally. This divergence is seen in early atrophy of the hippocampus before age 40, and in the amygdala around age 40.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/c-ahd030819.php