Walking a minimum of eight kilometres per week can help protect the brain and help reduce cognitive decline in people already diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research.
Presented at a recent conference, researchers from the department of radiology at the University of Pittsburgh presented their findings on changes in brain volume among adults with varying degrees of cognitive impairment. The individuals in the study have had their physical activity monitored as part of a cardiovascular study over the last 10 years.
MCI is diagnosed when a person has more problems with memory and cognitive skills than is typical for their age, but is not as severe as found in patients with Alzheimer’s. About 50 per cent of people with MCI develop Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Cyrus Raji and colleagues recruited individuals from the ongoing Cardiovascular Health Study in the United States, which has been collecting data for 20 years. They analyzed the relationship between physical activity and brain structure.
The study included 426 participants in total. Of that number, 127 had cognitive impairments and an average age of 83, while the remaining 299 were healthy with an average age of 78. Of the impaired individuals, 83 had MCI and 44 had Alzheimer’s.
Data from the study showed how often participants walked in a week. Ten years later, they performed 3D MRI scans of the brains to look for changes in brain volume. Each subject also completed a small exam assessing mental state.
When all factors were combined, the researchers found more exercise was correlated with greater brain volume. Walking eight kilometres per week was found to lead to greater brain volume in patients already cognitively deficient. Walking further did not preserve more brain volume.
Reversing age-related decline and degeneration would be a boon for society, but for some mice at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, it is already a reality.
Published in the scientific journal Nature, scientists at the facility observed recuperation of cognitive function, improved fertility as well as growth of both the brain and testes of male mice injected with a gene that maintains the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes.
Researchers led by Dr. Ronald DePinho generated prematurely aged mice by flipping the switch to the gene, called the telomerase gene. They later activated the same switch to generate more protective caps, or telomeres, to see if they could slow down or reverse the effects of aging.
When the telomeres are lost, signals start running through the body that cause everything from stopping cell division to self-destruction as everything in the body starts to degenerate or die. When the telomerase gene in the mice was turned off, many developed reduced testes size, small sperm counts, atrophied spleens, damaged intestines, brain shrinkage and an inability to grow new brain cells.
Once the gene, known as TERT, was placed under the skin of some of the mice in pellet form, improvements were noted within four weeks. Cells were growing, tissue degeneration had reversed and their spleens, brains and testes all grew. Cognitively, the mice were even able to perform some tasks that mice not given the TERT gene were not able to.
According to a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics, children with stomach viruses can benefit from ingesting probiotics, microbes that help protect from several diseases.
Probiotics are often found in yogurt and other supplements and encourage activity or growth of bacteria in the gut, which promotes good health.
In the study, the authors report that randomized trials found probiotics were “modestly effective” in treating children with antibiotic-associated diarrhea or other acute viruses. Other studies have found benefits to low-weight infants, with probiotics potentially helping prevent necrotizing enterocolitis; a bacterial intestinal infection can both kill tissue and poison blood. Other trials still have shown potential benefits for children with colic, ulcerative colitis and irritable bowel syndrome.
However, at this point the journal is not willing to endorse the bacteria’s use wholeheartedly.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics said that the science is not strong enough to advocate infant formulas with probiotics … probiotics shouldn’t be given to seriously ill children.”
Whether you refer to it as secondhand smoke or “passive smoking,” it still kills about 603,000 worldwide every year, accounting for one per cent of all global premature deaths, according to The Lancet.
Comprehensive data on the impact of secondhand smoke was solicited from 192 countries in 2004. The death toll was calculated, but so to were some other facts.
• 40 per cent of children are exposed to secondhand smoke
• 33 per cent of men who don’t smoke are exposed, compared to 35 per cent of female non-smokers.
• Secondhand smoke is thought to have caused 165,000 lower respiratory infection deaths, 379,000 ischemic stroke deaths, 36,900 asthma deaths and 21,400 lung cancer deaths.
Other burdens included almost six million children suffering lower respiratory tract infections, 2.8 million adults with ischemic heart disease and 1.3 children developing asthma.
Of the total number of deaths, two-thirds happened in Africa and South Asia.
“Together, tobacco smoke and infections lead to substantial, avoidable mortality and loss of active life-years of children.”
