Mental Health

6 ways to keep the brain young

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A third of the brain’s volume is composed of blood vessels. Maintaining a healthy blood flow to those blood vessels is critical to keeping the brain young. Here are six ways you can keep your mind sharp:

Exercise

Research has shown exercise improves brain health, and it’s never too early or too late to begin. Even moderate exercise has been shown to increase memory, mental processing speed and the size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for forming new memories, even in previously sedentary adults. Simply walking three times a week has been shown to produce significant gains in memory and mental processing speed.

Eat right

Neurologists agree a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes will help keep the brain healthy. They also advocate eating fish, walnuts, flax seed or other sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Curcumin, found in the spice curry, may also be protective against Alzheimer’s. Conversely, a high-fat diet and obesity raise the risk for dementia. So do high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure if left untreated.

Watch your levels

Research has shown high levels of the amino acid homocysteine is associated with a poor memory and doubles the risk of Alzheimer’s. Vitamin B12 and folic acid lowers the level of homocysteine, which is also associated with heart disease and strokes. Green, leafy vegetables and fruits contain folic acid; meat, fish, yogurt and fortified cereals contain vitamin B12.

Ease stress

Lowering the amount of stress in your life lowers the risk for dementia. A glass of wine (or other moderate alcohol consumption), laughter and meditation are all considered beneficial. A Harvard Medical School study showed 30 minutes of meditation a day for eight weeks even increased the size of the hippocampus. Studies at Loma Linda University have shown laughter reduces the stress hormone cortisol, which is toxic to the hippocampus.

Stay social

Maintaining an active social life provides mental stimulation and lowers stress. It also lowers the risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The more social activities, the better, and people who choose mentally challenging leisure pursuits such as playing cards with friends or joining a community organization do better in general than those whose activities are primarily physical or social. Living alone or avoiding social ties raises the risk of dementia.

Learn

More formal education is associated with lower rates of dementia and Alzheimer’s, but “use it or lose it” applies at any age — and more with the brain than the muscles, neurologists say. To keep the brain sharp, experts recommend learning new and fun mental activities. Crossword puzzles or sudoku, once mastered after a month or so, may not stimulate the brain the way learning a new language, picking up a musical instrument or joining a book club might.

Source: cnn news

Speaking more than one language can keep your brain young!

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If you speak more languages than one, it is good not only for your social image but also for the health of your brain, a research said. Bilingualism has a positive effect on cognition later in life. Individuals, who speak two or more languages, even those who acquired the second language in adulthood, may slow down cognitive decline from ageing, the research found. ‘Our study is the first to examine whether learning a second language impacts cognitive performance later in life while controlling for childhood intelligence,’ said lead author Thomas Bak from University of Edinburgh.

Bilingualism is thought to improve cognition and delay dementia in older adults. While prior research has investigated the impact of learning more languages than one, ruling out ‘reverse causality’ has proven difficult. ‘The crucial question is whether people improve their cognitive functions through learning new languages or whether those with better baseline cognitive functions are more likely to become bilingual,’ Bak asked. For the current study, researchers relied on data of 835 native speakers of English who were born and living in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Some 262 participants reported to be able to communicate in at least one language other than English. ‘The findings indicate that those who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive abilities,’ the researchers added. The strongest effects were seen in general intelligence and reading. The effects were present in those who acquired their second language early as well as late. ‘These findings are of considerable practical relevance. Millions of people around the world acquire their second language later in life. Our study shows that bilingualism, even when acquired in adulthood, may benefit the aging brain,’ Bak concluded. The study was published in the journal Annals of Neurology.

Can speaking two languages save you from dementia?

It’s a great thing that we Indians speak so many different languages. Most of us speak two or more languages and that apparently cuts down our risk of developing dementia! A new study has shown that people, who speak more than 1 language, tend to develop dementia up to 5 years later than those who are monolingual.

A team of scientists examined almost 650 dementia patients and assessed when each one had been diagnosed with the condition. The study was carried out by researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad (India). They found that people who spoke two or more languages experienced a later onset of Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia and frontotemporal dementia.

The bilingual advantage extended to illiterate people who had not attended school. This confirms that the observed effect is not caused by differences in formal education. It is the largest study so far to gauge the impact of bilingualism on the onset of dementia – independent of a person’s education, gender, and occupation and whether they live in a city or in the country, all of which have been examined as potential factors influencing the onset of dementia. The team of researchers said that further studies are needed to determine the mechanism, which causes the delay in the onset of dementia

source: health

Stress in relationships may raise risk of death

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Worries, conflicts and demands in relationships with friends, family and neighbors may contribute to an earlier death suggests a new Danish study.

“Conflicts, especially, were associated with higher mortality risk regardless of whom was the source of the conflict,” the authors write. “Worries and demands were only associated with mortality risk if they were related to partner or children.”

Men and people without jobs seemed to be the most vulnerable, Rikke Lund, a public health researcher at the University of Copenhagen, and her colleagues found.

The health-protecting effects of support from a social network and close connections with family and friends are widely recognized, Lund’s team writes in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

“Less is known about the health consequences of stressful aspects of social relations, such as conflicts, worries and demands,” they write.

To examine the influence of relationship stress on all causes of death, the researchers looked at data from a long-term study in Denmark. They included 9,870 adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s when the study began and tracked their health from 2000 to the end of 2011.

The researchers measured stressful social relations by comparing answers to questions about who – including partners, children, relatives, friends and neighbors – caused worry and conflicts in the participants’ lives.

They also looked at answers to questions about emotional support and symptoms of depression.

During the study period, 4 percent of the women and 6 percent of the men died. Almost half the deaths were from cancer; other causes included cardiovascular disease, liver disease, accidents and suicide.

About one in every 10 participants said that their partner or children were always or often a source of demands and worries. Six percent said they always or often experienced conflicts with other members of their families and 2 percent reported always or often having conflicts with friends.

The researchers also found that 6 percent of participants had frequent arguments with their partner or children, 2 percent with other relatives and 1 percent with friends or neighbors.

Source: Standard media

Mental Illness Can Shorten Life Span as Much as Smoking

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Serious mental illness can take between seven and 24 years off a person’s life, which is similar to or worse than the impact of heavy smoking, researchers report.

“We found that many mental health diagnoses are associated with a drop in life expectancy as great as that associated with smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day,” Dr. Seena Fazel, of the department of psychiatry, at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, said in a university news release.

“There are likely to be many reasons for this. High-risk behaviors are common in psychiatric patients, especially drug and alcohol abuse, and they are more likely to die by suicide,” Fazel noted. “The stigma surrounding mental health may mean people aren’t treated as well for physical health problems when they do see a doctor.”

Fazel’s team examined 20 studies that looked at the link between mental illness and death rates. The studies included more than 1.7 million people, and 250,000 deaths.

The researchers found that major mental disorders can greatly shorten people’s lives. For example, the average life expectancy was 10 to 20 years shorter than normal for people with schizophrenia, 9 to 20 years shorter for those with bipolar disorder, 7 to 11 years shorter for those with recurrent depression, and 9 to 24 years shorter for people with drug and alcohol abuse.

By contrast, heavy smoking shortens life by an average of 8 to 10 years, the study authors noted.

Although this study found an association between mental illness and an increased risk of premature death, it did not prove that mental illness causes early death.

While mental illness appears to greatly increase the risk of premature death, it’s not a major public health priority, the researchers noted. One of the reasons is the tendency to separate mental and physical health.

“Many causes of mental health problems also have physical consequences, and mental illness worsens the prognosis of a range of physical illnesses, especially heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Unfortunately, people with serious mental illnesses may not access health care effectively,” Fazel said in the news release.

He and his colleagues said their findings should push governments and health officials to place a much higher priority on mental health.

Source: health

Having ice cream may not lift your mood

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Do you often rush for comfort foods such as chocolate or ice cream in order to boost your mood?

Scientists have found the idea that eating certain foods makes us feel better when we are in a bad mood may be a myth.

On the other hand, people may simply feel better after some time has passed, regardless of what they eat, according to a new study.
Researchers asked study participants to pick foods that they thought would make them feel better if they were in a bad mood, such as chocolate, cookies or ice cream.

They were also asked to choose foods that they liked, but that they did not think would boost their mood, ‘Live Science’ reported.
Participants then watched a 20-minute video intended to elicit feelings of sadness, anger and fear. They rated their mood immediately after the video, and three minutes later.

In those three minutes, they were served either their comfort food, a food they liked, a granola bar, or no food at all.
As expected, participants were in a bad mood immediately after watching the video. Three minutes later, their mood improved, regardless of whether they had their comfort food, another food, or no food at all.
“We were incredibility surprised by those results,” said researcher Heather Scherschel Wagner, a doctorate candidate at the University of Minnesota.

Before the study was conducted, the researchers believed that there was something to eating comfort food, said Wagner.
“Whether it’s your comfort food, or it’s a granola bar, or if you eat nothing at all, you will eventually feel better. Basically, comfort food can’t speed up that healing process,” Wagner said.

Source: Indian Express

Smiling can help fight memory loss

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A new study has revealed that humor and laughter can help lessen the damage that stress hormone cortisol has on memory and learning ability in the elderly.

According to the researchers at Loma Linda University, there was a significant decrease in cortisol concentrations among both groups who watched a funny video and showed greater improvement in all areas of the memory assessment when compared to controls.

Gurinder Singh Bains said that their findings offer potential clinical and rehabilitative benefits that can be applied to wellness programs for the elderlyand the cognitive components, such as learning ability and delayed recall, become more challenging as people age and are essential to older adults for an improved quality of life.

The researchers said that the less stress one has the better their memory, as humor reduces detrimental stress hormones like cortisol that decrease memory hippocampal neurons, lowers the blood pressure, and increases blood flow and mood state.
The study revealed that the act of laughter-or simply enjoying some humor-increases the release of endorphins and dopamine in the brain, which provides a sense of pleasure and reward and the positive and beneficial neurochemical changes, in turn, make the immune system function better.

Source: Yahoo news

Almost half of homeless men had traumatic brain injury

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Almost half of all homeless men who took part in a study by St. Michael’s Hospital had suffered at least one traumatic brain injury in their life and 87 per cent of those injuries occurred before the men lost their homes.

While assaults were a major cause of those traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, (60 per cent) many were caused by potentially non-violent mechanisms such as sports and recreation (44 per cent) and motor vehicle collisions and falls (42 per cent).

The study, led by Dr. Jane Topolovec-Vranic, a clinical researcher in the hospital’s Neuroscience Research Program, was published today in the journal CMAJ Open.

Dr. Topolovec-Vranic said it’s important for health care providers and others who work with homeless people to be aware of any history of TBI because of the links between such injuries and mental health issues, substance abuse, seizures and general poorer physical health.
The fact that so many homeless men suffered a TBI before losing their home suggests such injuries could be a risk factor for becoming homeless, she said. That makes it even more important to monitor young people who suffer TBIs such as concussions for health and behavioural changes, she said.

Dr. Topolovec-Vranic looked at data on 111 homeless men aged 27 to 81 years old who were recruited from a downtown Toronto men’s shelter. She found that 45 per cent of these men had experienced a traumatic brain injury, and of these, 70 per cent were injured during childhood or teenage years and 87 per cent experienced an injury before becoming homeless.

In men under age 40, falls from drug/alcohol blackouts were the most common cause of traumatic brain injury while assault was the most common in men over 40 years old.

Recognition that a TBI sustained in childhood or early teenage years could predispose someone to homelessness may challenge some assumptions that homelessness is a conscious choice made by these individuals, or just the result of their addictions or mental illness, said Dr. Topolovec-Vranic.
This study received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation.

Separately, a recent study by Dr. Stephen Hwang of the hospital’s Centre for Research on Inner City Health, found the number of people who are homeless or vulnerably housed and who have also suffered a TBI may be as high as 61 per cent — seven times higher than the general population.
Dr. Hwang’s study, published in the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, is one of the largest studies to date investigating TBI in homeless populations. The findings come from the Health and Housing in Transition Study, which tracks the health and housing status of homeless and vulnerably housed people in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa.

source: Science daily

Thinking Problems Tied to Blockages in Neck Artery

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Blockage of the carotid artery in the neck appears to increase the odds for memory and thinking problems, a new study indicates.

The researchers said their findings suggest more aggressive treatment might be needed for people with this condition, which is caused by plaque buildup in the artery.

The study is to be presented Wednesday at the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting in Philadelphia.

“To date, the focus of diagnosis and management of carotid artery blockages has been prevention of stroke since that was the only harm that these blockages were thought to cause to patients,” Dr. Brajesh Lal, of the Baltimore VA Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in an AAN news release.

“These results underscore the importance of assessing the status of memory and thinking in people with carotid artery narrowing,” Lal added.

In conducting the study, the researchers examined 67 people with symptomless carotid narrowing, or stenosis. For these participants, the diameter of their artery was cut in half. The study also included 60 people who did not have carotid blockage but did have risk factors, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and coronary artery disease.

Researchers tested participants’ thinking ability, examining their processing speed, learning, memory, decision-making and language.

They found participants with carotid blockage performed much worse on the thinking tests. They also scored lower on motor and processing speed evaluations as well as learning and memory tests. The researchers said language scores did not differ between the two groups of participants.

“If these findings are confirmed in larger studies, they hold significant implications for new treatment targets and open the door for more questions such as: should these patients be treated more aggressively with medications, cognitive rehabilitation, or even surgery to open up the artery,” Lal said in the association news release.

He said he anticipates follow-up studies searching for causes and the best treatment options.

Source: webmd

Sleep quality does affect decision-making ability

Fragmented or lower sleep efficiency may affect executive function as it is linked to decline in cognitive abilities of older people over a period of three to four years, a study has found.

Poor sleep quality is associated with a 40 to 50 percent increase in the odds of clinically significant decline in executive function, which was similar in magnitude to the effect of a five-year increase in age.

“This study provides an important reminder that healthy sleep involves both the quantity and quality of sleep,” said M. Safwan Badr, president of American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

The study involved 2,822 community-dwelling older men at six clinical centres in the US
Participants had a mean age of 76 years.

An average of five nights of objective sleep data were collected from each participant using a wrist actigraph.

Cognitive function assessment included evaluation of attention and executive function using the Trails B test.

According to the study authors, executive function is the ability for planning or decision making, error correction or trouble shooting and abstract thinking.

The study appeared in the journal Sleep.

Source: Khaleej times

Genetic test could help identify kids at low-IQ risk

Researchers claimed to have developed a genetic test that could spot children with impaired thyroid function at risk of developing low IQ.

After studying the genetic and IQ data of 3123 children under 7 with a common gene variant, researchers found that those with thyroid hormone levels less than the normal range had a four-fold greater risk of having an IQ less than 85 if they also had reduced thyroid hormone levels, News.com.au reported.

Lead researcher Peter Taylor, from the University of Cardiff, said that kids with satisfactory thyroid hormone levels, together with the genetic variant, have normal IQ levels, which raises the possibility that children at risk could be treated with standard thyroid hormone tablets to compensate for impaired thyroid hormone processing.

Source: Business Standard