Scientists Say These Daily Routines Can Slow Cognitive Decline
But most of that understanding comes from observational studies, which correlate people's behaviors with outcomes while trying to account for other factors that may interfere with the results. While useful, these do not yield the type of solid scientific evidence that doctors like to act on and strongly recommend to their patients.
A new study published in JAMA and presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, however, may finally provide the stronger evidence that doctors pass on to their patients.
The study included more than 2,100 older adults—ages 60 to 79—who did not have symptoms of cognitive decline or dementia but who were at higher risk for them. Their risk factors included being sedentary, eating an unhealthy diet, having a family history of memory problems or a genetic predisposition for them, having heart disease risk factors, or belonging to certain ethnic groups that have a higher risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
The two groups were randomly assigned to one of two lifestyle programs that ran for two years. One was more structured and involved 38 group sessions in which clinicians and participants set goals for meeting certain health benchmarks. It also included weekly online brain- training sessions, appointments to review lab test results with a clinician, and a $10 monthly rebate, provided by the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council, for people to purchase blueberries. (Studies have linked the antioxidants in blueberries to slower cognitive decline.) The other less-structured group was provided general information about making brain-healthy changes, met in teams about three times a year, and was provided a $75 gift card at each meeting to spend as they wished on healthy behavior changes.
Read More: How to Maximize the Health Benefits of Walking
Phyllis Jones, from Aurora, Ill., had a personal reason for joining the study. 'I watched my mom with dementia for 8.5 years,' she says. 'It was very difficult to watch. But what made it harder for me was that I had seen my mother caring for her mother. So I saw two generations ahead of me go through that.' Joining the study, she says, 'gave me a way to try to break the cycle from happening again.'
At the end of the study, everyone improved on their cognitive function score, but the group following the more structured program showed significantly greater improvement. On average, those in the structured change group appeared to slow their cognitive decline by one to two years.
'Because of the rigor of the trial, the size of the trial, and the care we took in rolling out the interventions, we now finally have scientific evidence that healthy behavior does matter,' says Laura Baker, professor of gerontology and geriatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. 'That's new information. We all think we know it, but until now, we didn't have the science.'
Jones, who was part of the structured group, says that prior to the study, she was stressed out at work and not taking care of her health. 'I was not exercising or eating the right things,' she says. The turning point for her, she says, occurred when her son said, ''Mom, I didn't expect to be a caregiver for you at this stage in your life, not yet.' I knew I had to find a way out of this dark hole.'
While the structured program required more commitment and accountability from the participants, Jones says she didn't feel discouraged or frustrated with making the changes, since the study ramped them up gradually, and she had the support of other people in her group. 'We had team meetings, and instead of starting out with the prescribed 30 to 35 minutes of exercise a day, four times a week, we started with 10 minutes a day and moved up from there,' she says. 'If you are living a sedentary lifestyle, 10 minutes a day is a good start. And then if you can get through the 10 minutes, you can push to 20 minutes and then get to 30 minutes.'
One of the women in Jones' group was Patty Kelly, and the two inspired and motivated each other. Kelly, 81, says she struggled with weight most of her life, and weighed 130 pounds in the third grade. Like Jones, her mother was diagnosed with dementia at 77, and Kelly cared for her for seven years, watching as her mother gradually failed to recognize her family. 'I wanted to make sure my sons did not have to go through that with me,' she says.
Both Jones and Kelly say they are different from when they began the study in many ways. Kelly says her driving has improved, which she attributes to the regular brain-training exercises she did on the computer as part of the study. 'At this point, I'm living my life with my arms wide open,' says Jones, who is now working at a job she loves. 'I'm just having a ball.'
The improvement occurred in people with the APOE4 genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, as well as those without the mutation—an encouraging indication of the power of lifestyle changes.
Read More: 9 Things You Should Do for Your Brain Health Every Day, According to Neurologists
Everyone experiences cognitive decline with age, Baker says. But the results provide reassuring evidence that not all cognitive decline that occurs with age is inevitable. The trial was a continuation of a similar study published in 2015 from Finland demonstrating similar cognitive benefits in people at risk of developing Alzheimer's and other dementias who made behavior changes. The current trial was intended to involve a more diverse population at risk of not just Alzheimer's, but the broader condition of dementia. 'It doesn't reverse the clock but it's very clear that it can slow, and pull back the clock by one to two years,' she says.
Baker and her colleagues determined this by relying on a global score to measure people's cognitive state—the result of a compilation of different cognitive tests that neuropsychologists typically use to assess brain function. The suite of tests is designed to pick up even the smallest changes in cognitive function, something that cognitive tests to detect Alzheimer's can't do.
Baker says she plans to follow the people in the study for another four years to record what impact the behavior changes might have on the incidence of dementia and Alzheimer's. About 30% of the people in the trial showed signs of amyloid, the hallmark of Alzheimer's, in their brain scans, although they did not have any symptoms of memory loss or other cognitive deficits yet. Another third carried the APOE4 gene that increases the risk of Alzheimer's, so Baker says following them will provide better insight into 'how to improve cognition as a means of increasing resilience to decline.'
Maria Carrillo, chief scientific officer at the Alzheimer's Association (which supported and contributed to the design of the study), says that the follow-up will also include looking at the relationship between behavior changes and Alzheimer's medications for people who have the disease to better understand how making such lifestyle changes early might impact the disease's severity. The researchers are also eager to study how the popular GLP-1 weight loss drugs affect cognitive decline, since some early studies hint that the drugs may help to lower inflammation associated with Alzheimer's disease.
The rigor of the study means that doctors can, and should, start talking to their patients about making behavior changes to maintain their brain health, Carrillo says. 'This could be something that if we are able to roll it out—which is our intent—through health systems, clinics and public health organizations, we could create something in which more and more individuals out there understand the impact that their everyday activities have in improving their health,' she says. 'Nobody really thinks about cognitive function, and rarely do primary care doctors ask about it. This will change that.'
The good news is that even those who made changes on their own experienced some slowing in cognitive decline. That also suggests that even if people adopt part of the behavior changes—starting with their diet, for example, if they aren't able to exercise—they might still improve their brain health. 'Anything is better than nothing,' says Baker.
Jones views her new lifestyle as a positive example for her seven-year-old granddaughter, who knows that it's not a good lunch unless it includes a salad. 'She got that from grandma,' she says. She now volunteers as a community educator for the Alzheimer's Association, helping people who are living through the same challenges she faced before joining the study.
It's all about taking the first step, and now there's strong evidence that the effort is worthwhile. 'For people who are already doing these things, it gives them hope that they are saving their brain health, and that's great,' says Carrillo. 'For those who are halfway there, this encourages them to take it to the next level and exercise a little more or eat a little healthier. And for those on the other end of the spectrum—who aren't following the program at all—it gives them hope that if they do certain things, they can indeed change their cognitive trajectory. It's good news for everybody.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
5 hours ago
- The Hill
Senate panel rejects Trump cuts to NIH, other health agencies
The Senate Appropriations Committee rejected the Trump administration's massive proposed funding cut to the National Institutes of Health, advancing a measure that would increase the agency's budget by $400 million. The White House budget called for slashing NIH by $18 billion, a decrease of 40 percent. Instead, the committee advanced the bill on a 26-3 vote, delivering a bipartisan rebuke of the administration's efforts to defund medical research. 'This committee has had multiple hearings over the last several months and heard from patients, families and researchers about the importance of NIH funding,' said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). 'This committee has, in a bipartisan manner, prioritized NIH and the research it supports to develop life-saving treatments and cures for devastating diseases.' The committee rejected the administration's plan to revamp the way NIH pays universities, medical schools, and other research centers for overhead costs, as well as a proposal to restructure the agency and consolidate all 27 NIH institutes into eight new entities. The bill includes a $100 million increase for Alzheimer's disease research, a $150 million increase for cancer research, and a $30 million increase for the Office of Research on Women's Health. 'To the scientists wondering if there will even be an NIH by the end of this administration: this committee's resounding message is yes,' said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the committee's vice chair. 'Congress has your back — we're not going to give up the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, or rare diseases,' Murray said. Democratic committee members also expressed frustration at the White House Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) repeated encroachments into the appropriations process and attempts to halt spending of money that was already approved by Congress. Since President Trump took office, NIH has terminated or frozen nearly 5,000 awards totaling $4 billion, while another approximately $15 billion has not yet been obligated. 'Right now, they are illegally hiding apportionments data that would let us know whether funds we passed are being spent as intended and help us strengthen the bills we are in the middle of writing on. It is absurd we have to mark up bills, while being kept in the dark,' Murray said. Murray and other members repeatedly mentioned an OMB memo from earlier this week that, through a footnote, abruptly prevented NIH from issuing grants. While the decision was reversed, Democrats said it showed the administration's disdain for congressional spending authority. 'One footnote, from an unelected bureaucrat — overruling Congress and even NIH, to block $15 billion in funding for things like cancer research,' Murray said. Outside of NIH, the bill maintains flat funding for other health agencies and programs, including the Title X family planning program and domestic HIV prevention. The bill also rejected the nearly $4 billion — or 50 percent — cut and consolidation to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention programs included in the White House budget request. But looming over the process is the possibility of another rescissions package from the administration. 'Should the administration put forward a new rescissions package, in many cases, in our bill, we have rejected proposals that the President has made to make drastic cuts. That's Congress speaking up and saying we have a different position on that, and so I expect my Republican colleagues will stand by the decisions we've made,' Baldwin told reporters ahead of the hearing. Still, the HHS budget is far from being final. The House has so far only passed two of its annual funding bills, and has not held an Appropriations Committee markup on its version of the HHS bill.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists Find 2 Existing Drugs Can Reverse Alzheimer's Brain Damage in Mice
In efforts to beat Alzheimer's disease, researchers are looking at existing drugs that could tackle the condition, and a new study identifies two promising candidates that are currently used to treat cancer. Already approved by regulators in the US – meaning potential clinical trials for Alzheimer's could start sooner – the drugs are letrozole (usually used to treat breast cancer) and irinotecan (usually used to treat colon and lung cancer). Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Gladstone Institutes started by looking at how Alzheimer's altered gene expression in the brain. They then consulted a medical database called the Connectivity Map to look for drugs that reversed these gene expression changes, and cross-referenced records of patients who had taken these drugs as part of cancer treatments and their likelihood of developing Alzheimer's. Intriguingly, the drugs seemed to have reduced their risk. Related: "Alzheimer's disease comes with complex changes to the brain, which has made it tough to study and treat, but our computational tools opened up the possibility of tackling the complexity directly," says computational biologist Marina Sirota, from UCSF. "We're excited that our computational approach led us to a potential combination therapy for Alzheimer's based on existing FDA-approved medications." Having picked out letrozole and irinotecan as the best candidates, the researchers tested them in mouse models of Alzheimer's. When used in tandem, the drugs were shown to reverse some of the brain changes brought on by the disease. The harmful clumps of tau protein that build up in brains affected by Alzheimer's were reduced significantly, and the mice showed improvements in learning and memory tasks – two brain capabilities often impaired by Alzheimer's. By combining the two drugs together, the researchers were able to target different types of brain cells affected by the disease. Letorozole seemed to counter Alzheimer's in neurons, while irinotecan worked in glia. "Alzheimer's is likely the result of numerous alterations in many genes and proteins that, together, disrupt brain health," says neuroscientist Yadong Huang, from UCSF and Gladstone. "This makes it very challenging for drug development – which traditionally produces one drug for a single gene or protein that drives disease." It's a promising start, but there's more work to be done: obviously the drugs have only been directly tested in mice so far, and these medications also come with side effects attached. They need to be reconsidered if the drugs are going to be repurposed for a different disease than what they were originally approved for. One of the next steps should be clinical trials for people with Alzheimer's disease. According to the researchers, this approach could lead to more personalized and effective treatments, based on how gene expression has been altered in each case. It's estimated that more than 55 million people have Alzheimer's today, and as the world's population ages, that's expected to more than double in the next 25 years. Finding ways to prevent the disease and even reverse symptoms would have a huge impact on global health. "If completely independent data sources, such as single-cell expression data and clinical records, guide us to the same pathways and the same drugs, and then resolve Alzheimer's in a genetic model, then maybe we're on to something," says Sirota. "We're hopeful this can be swiftly translated into a real solution for millions of patients with Alzheimer's." The research has been published in Cell. Related News Psilocybin Extends Life of Human Cells by 50% in Wild New Study Celebrity Undergoes Controversial Procedure to Clean Blood of Microplastics COVID Can Cause Alzheimer's-Like Plaques in Eyes And Brain Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Sleepiness Could Be Triggered by a Power Overload in Our Brain
Denied of sleep, we find it but impossible to keep our eyes open and our thoughts focused. A new study based on fruit flies may have pin-pointed the origins of this biological lullaby, and with it a deeper understanding of our need for rest on a cellular level. Researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK have identified our cell's mitochondria as responsible for signaling when the body has to get some shut-eye as soon as possible. These tiny power generators cause a kind of metabolic overload in sleep-regulating neurons, the researchers suggest, which in simple terms indicates when our brain is running on empty. Through sleep, this overload can be reset, ensuring the brain remains in a healthy state. Related: "We set out to understand what sleep is for, and why we feel the need to sleep at all," says physiologist Gero Miesenböck. "Despite decades of research, no one had identified a clear physical trigger." "Our findings show that the answer may lie in the very process that fuels our bodies: aerobic metabolism." The team studied neurons responsible for regulating sleep in fruit flies, which have enough biological similarities to humans to make them useful for research. Through a comparison of well-rested and sleep-deprived fruit flies, the researchers identified differences in gene activity and electrical signaling. Overloaded mitochondria in sleep-deprived brains were found to shed electrons, increasing the generation of harmful waste products. The sleep-regulating neurons respond to these molecules by going into overdrive, making sleep a top biological priority. "You don't want your mitochondria to leak too many electrons," says neuroscientist Raffaele Sarnataro. "When they do, they generate reactive molecules that damage cells." Genetically engineering flies with a higher production of electrons in their sleep-regulating cells resulted in fruit flies that also slept more. Similarly, flies with a reduced level of electron generation slept less. There are, of course, other pressures on sleep, from how many coffees you have per day to the alignment of your circadian rhythm – the internal schedule that tells your body when it's time for bed. But now we have an actual cellular mechanism controlling sleep, and showing why we can't do without it. Anything new we learn about sleep can inform the treatment of sleep disorders and even neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's. These diseases are closely linked to sleep and the way it protects the brain, and connections to mitochondria could be something for future studies to investigate. The study also joins some of the dots between metabolism, sleep, and lifespan. Smaller animals tend to sleep more and live shorter lives, and the activity of mitochondria – and the waste that needs clearing up – could be part of the reason why. "This research answers one of biology's big mysteries," says Sarnataro. "Why do we need sleep? The answer appears to be written into the very way our cells convert oxygen into energy." The research has been published in Nature. Related News Study Reveals Key Way to Slow Chronic Illness in Old Age Liver Cancer Predicted to Double by 2050, But There Is Hope One Weekend Habit May Cut Risk of Heart-Related Death by 33%, Study Finds Solve the daily Crossword
