Category: Wellness

Posted on

Middle Age Cardiovascular Fitness May Prevent Dementia

Heart graphic (Credit: Pixabay)

“Among a group of Swedish women, those with high cardiovascular fitness at middle age were 88% less likely to develop dementia decades later, compared with women with moderate cardiovascular fitness, researchers reported online in Neurology.”

This means that if cardiovascular fitness is improved or maintained during middle age that has the potential to delay or prevent dementia from developing in a person’s later years. However, this was a limited study and it does not prove causation, just association, which means that more research needs to be done to determine if there is a true link between cardiovascular fitness and the prevention of dementia and if so when exactly in a person’s lifetime a high fitness level most important (be it midlife or otherwise).

To learn more details about the study read this post from the Psych Congress Network: “Fitness in Midlife May Significantly Lower Dementia Risk.” And you may also want to read the wonky source article, “Midlife cardiovascular fitness and dementia: A 44-year longitudinal population study in women“, published on March 14, 2018 by Helena Horder, PhD, Lena Johansson, PhD, XinXin Guo, MD, PhD, Gunnar Grimby, MD, Silke Kern, MD, PhD, Svante O ̈stling, MD, and Ingmar Skoog, MD. (The Neurology article came to our attention via Nicholas Bakalar’s post, “Fitness in Midlife May Help Fend Off Dementia” in the The New York Times.)

SaveSave

Posted on

Midlife Weight Gain Harms Your Health

(Credit: Pixabay)

For many adults, weight gain is slow and steady, but new research suggests that even a few extra pounds can boost your risk of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.” […] On average, people gain about a half a pound to a pound per year. Most people gain weight all the way to 55 and up,” Hu said. “But once you cross the obesity threshold, it’s difficult to go back. This study provides very strong evidence that prevention of weight gain is very important.” (Source: US News)

Two large-scale studies in the United States focused on weight gain and its connection to health problems. The studies included almost 93,000 women whose health was followed for 18 years, and more than 25,000 men whose health was followed for 15 years. The researchers found that for every 11 pounds gained the risk of certain conditions increased, including:

  • 30% higher risk of diabetes 
  • 14% higher risk of high blood pressure
  • 8% higher risk of heart disease or stroke
  • 6% increased risk of an obesity-related cancer
  • 5% higher risk of dying prematurely
  • 17% decrease in the odds of healthy aging

If you notice yourself gaining weight it is best to begin trying to modify the factors/behaviors that you believe are affecting your weight as soon as possible.

Although it’s never too late to gain health benefits from losing weight, it becomes much harder to take weight off and keep it off the heavier you get. (Source: US News)

To learn more about these studies and their findings read this article: “More Evidence That Midlife Weight Gain Harms Your Health.”

Posted on

Risk of Fatty Heart in Middle-Aged Women

“Excess fat around the heart, in both men and women, is an evolving risk factor for heart disease. But how can clinicians see it at a regular physical? They can’t without a special heart scan,” said senior author Samar El Khoudary, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health.

In August 2017, a study was published in the Menopause journal that discovered a heart disease risk factor in women that did not require special testing, but was a simple characteristic that a patient could discuss with their doctor: midlife weight gain. Although the location of that weight gain differed between races; it is midlife weight gain in the midsection that can be a fatty heart risk for black women, while for white women the risk is higher when they add weight all over their bodies.

“This study, coupled with our previous study in men, gives doctors another tool to evaluate their patients and get a better sense of their heart disease risk. It also may lead to suggestions for lifestyle modifications to help patients lessen that risk.”

You can learn more about the study and see the source of the quotes above by visiting this article: “Risk of a fatty heart linked to race, type of weight gain in middle-aged women.”

Posted on

Does Higher Late-Life Cholesterol Lower the Risk of Cognitive Decline?

Does Higher Late-Life Cholesterol Lower the Risk of Cognitive Decline?. (Source: Hartford Courant)
Does Higher Late-Life Cholesterol Lower the Risk of Cognitive Decline? (Source: Hartford Courant)

High cholesterol versus low cholesterol. Good cholesterol versus bad cholesterol. Mid-life high cholesterol versus late-life high cholesterol… Sometimes understanding the cholesterol big picture is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”!

Now you can add another curious twist: there may be an important correlation between higher late-life cholesterol levels and lower risks of of dementia and general cognitive decline.

A new study published in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia links high cholesterol with a lower risk of cognitive decline for people over 85 years old. But that might not necessarily mean that having high cholesterol prevents dementia…

They were surprised to find that for people aged 85 to 94 years old, having higher late-life than midlife cholesterol was correlated with a 32 percent lower risk of cognitive decline. In other words, higher cholesterol among the very old was associated with a reduced chance for dementia. (Source: Hartford Courant)

It may be a little premature (and several degrees short of definitive) but it’s heartening to consider the possibility that higher late-life cholesterol could lower the risk of cognitive decline. Watch this space…

Posted on

Your College Major Might Predict Your Midlife Health

Business and biology majors tend to be in strong physical shape a quarter-century after graduation. Psychology majors, not so much. (Source: PSMag.com)
Business and biology majors tend to be in strong physical shape a quarter-century after graduation. Psychology majors, not so much. (Source: PSMag.com)

So it turns out Underwater Basket Weaving wasn’t just a four-year junket with a diploma souvenir. It was actually an investment in your midlife health. Really? Really.

It turns out that your college major might predict your midlife health.

New research suggests another telling indicator could be added to that list: What was your college major?

A first-of-its-kind study finds one’s chosen field of undergraduate study “is a statistically significant, and substantively important, predictor of health status in midlife.”

“Compared to adults who majored in one of the most health-advantaged fields—business—adults majoring in some fields, such as psychology/social work and law/public policy, have nearly twice the odds of poor health,” reports a research team led by Syracuse University sociologist Jennifer Karas Montez. (Source: PSMag.com)

Humbug. Curious if your college major did / didn’t set you up for a midlife crisis? Read the full article HERE.

Posted on

Cure for Alzheimer’s Disease?

Brain
(Credit: Newsweek, LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

“An experimental treatment completely reversed Alzheimer’s disease in mice by reducing the levels of a single enzyme in the animals’ brains. The results further bolster the theory that amyloid plaques are at the root of this mysterious brain disease, and that addressing these plaques could lead to an eventual cure for Alzheimer’s.” (Newsweek)

Although the promising results of this study may show that research is on the right track, mice are too different from humans for the results to mean a sudden cure and it would be a minimum of five to seven years researchers would know if the same approach is helpful in humans.

For more information about the study (published Feb. 2018 in Journal of Experimental Medicine) and its findings read the full article, “Alzheimer’s Disease is Completely Reversed by Removing Just One Enzyme in New Study.”

Posted on

Is Midlife Obesity an Alzheimer Disease Risk Factor?

There are many detrimental effects a person can experience from being overweight or obese and new studies find that they may be potential contributors to the development of Alzheimer’s later in life.

There is particularly strong evidence for midlife obesity as a risk factor for AD [Alzheimer Disease]. A cross-sectional study published in Obesity found an inverse relationship between BMI and cognitive function among healthy late middle-aged adults, and various observational studies have reported that obesity in midlife increased the risk for late-life dementia.4 In research recently published in JAMA, high BMI in midlife was the only midlife vascular risk factor that demonstrated a significant association with increased late-life brain amyloid deposition (odds ratio, 2.06).5 (Source: Obesity and Alzheimer Disease: Exploring Risk Modification)

Learn more about these studies and their findings, including direct reference links to individual studies, in the full article here: “Obesity and Alzheimer Disease: Exploring Risk Modification.”

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

Posted on

Aerobic Exercise Slows Aging

“Regular running slows the effects of aging, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine that has tracked 500 older runners for more than 20 years. Elderly runners have fewer disabilities, a longer span of active life and are half as likely as aging nonrunners to die early deaths, the research found.

‘The study has a very pro-exercise message,’ said James Fries, MD, an emeritus professor of medicine at the medical school and the study’s senior author. ‘If you had to pick one thing to make people healthier as they age, it would be aerobic exercise.'” (Source: Running slows the aging clock, Stanford researchers find)

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave