Category Archives: Announcements

New Aging Resource Page

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We’ve added a new page of links under Aging:

Aging > Useful Sponsored Web Pages for Seniors

Links to web pages are sent to us regularly by various commercial organizations, particularly for our Aging page. Some are ok for Strong Brain Blog, some have absolutely nothing to do with this blog, and some show their commercial origin, but the level of advertising is restrained.

We’ll be adding any reasonable new ones that arrive. Here’s a snapshot of the page right now:

Staying Healthy in Your Home as You Age
Simple Changes to Make Your Home Safe for Aging in Place
Make Your Bathroom Safer with a Walk-In Tub
Accommodating the Needs of a Multigenerational Household
Grab Bars: Why and How to Install Them

The complete medication management guide for seniors

AboutAssistedLiving.org

Financial Assistance & Funding Options for Assisted Living / Senior Living

The Complete Guide to Home Modifications to Prevent Falls
Selling a Home with Modifications for Older Adults
Falls an Early Sign of Alzheimer’s
Fall Prevention & Mobility: Practical Safety and Organization Strategies for Seniors
Preventing Falls for a Person with Dementia
Senior Fall Prevention: A Roadmap for Navigating Resources and Benefits

Best Medical Alert Systems – 2019

Sleep Help for Seniors

Category: Aging, Announcements

Various Risk Factors

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In this post we’ve grouped articles and reports on several (independent) risk factors that have been reported in the past several years.

The first is the effects of the brain-dwelling parasite Toxoplasma gondii, often transmitted to humans by contact with cat feces.
Media article:
http://www.sciencealert.com/mind-altering-parasite-transmitted-by-cats-linked-to-several-brain-disorders
Research report:
Toxoplasma Modulates Signature Pathways of Human Epilepsy, Neurodegeneration & Cancer

Next is a study of how hearing loss could portend a greater risk for dementia later in life.
Media article:
Hearing loss could pose greater risk of potential dementia in later life – study
Research report:
SELF-REPORTED HEARING LOSS, COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE, AND RISK OF MCI: FINDINGS FROM THE WISCONSIN REGISTRY FOR ALZHEIMER’S PREVENTION

Next is a study on how, contrary to being purely negative (and presumably a primary sign of Alzheimer’s), the accumulation of amyloid beta may in fact be a response to the presence of infection.
Media articles:
Antimicrobial Mechanism Gone Rogue May Play Role in Alzheimer’s Disease
Human amyloid-beta acts as natural antibiotic in the brain: Alzheimer’s-associated amyloid plaques may trap microbes
Research abstract:
Amyloid-β peptide protects against microbial infection in mouse and worm models of Alzheimer’s disease.

Finally is a study of the interaction of certain heart treatments and the possible increase in potential for dementia.
Media article:
Warfarin, AF May Each Contribute to Dementia Risk in Atrial Fibrillation
Medical media article:
Among warfarin users, patients with AF at increased risk for dementia

All links have been added to Alzheimer’s > Risk Factors

Category: Announcements

Strong Brain Blog Announcements

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Dementia Early Warning Signs Infographic

We’ve added an infographic displaying eight early warning signs of dementia at:

Dementia: 8 Early Signs

How To Get Email Notices for New Posts

We’ve added a way for you to get a small email for each new post. We’ll never send anything else — no ads or other spam. Either click here on this link

Get Email Notices for New Posts

or click on it near the top of the sidebar.

Updated [Add Sex]: Distilled Tips for Healthy Aging

Since our popular post Distilled: Tips for Healthy Aging was first published on October 18, 2015, quite a few new pages and posts about tips for aging have appeared (and a few old ones have died). We’ve redone the searches, have revised and expanded the post, and in particular, have added in tips regarding the benefits of sex when aging.  We’ve converted the post to a permanent page appearing at

Distilled: Tips for Healthy Aging [Updated].

The revised and expanded contributing links are listed at:

Links Contributing To Distilled: Tips for Healthy Aging [Updated].

Category: Announcements

Alzheimer’s Mice Recovering

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A new drug, originally developed as a treatment for schizophrenia, appears to restore memories and neural connections in mice with models of Alzheimer’s disease, erasing evidence of Alzheimer’s synapse damage and memory loss. Of course, it’s a long way from repairing mouse models of Alzheimer’s to successfully handling human Alzheimer’s patients. But it’s a hopeful beginning.

Below is a link to an article about the study, as well as a link to the study itself:

Drug Restores Cells and Memories in Alzheimer’s: Mouse Study

Published research:
Silent Allosteric Modulation of mGluR5 Maintains Glutamate Signaling while Rescuing Alzheimer’s Mouse Phenotypes

Both links have been added to Alzheimers > Drugs

Category: Announcements, Drugs

New Chemo Brain Links Added

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We’ve added two new links on Chemo Brain:

Cancer and Careers | Working with Chemo Brain

Chemo Brain – CancerConnect News

Update: Aging vs Exercise Protecting Telomeres

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Previously, Physical Activity Staves Off Aging: Get Out There! described work relating physical activity to aging as measured by the lengths of telomeres in white blood cells. A new study has extended this to telomere length in heart muscle, a significant measure of heart health. So this provides even more reason to hit the gym or hit the road running or biking.

Here are two articles describing the work:

Endurance training may have a protective effect on the heart [2017]

Maryland Study Shows that Exercise Protects the Heart’s DNA Structure

Here is a link to the published research:

Acute exercise activates p38 MAPK and increases the expression of telomere-protective genes in cardiac muscle. [2017]

All the links have been posted in both Physical Exercise and Aging

Category: Aging, Announcements

Your Circadian Clock vs Aging Stress

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Surprise! Your circadian clock has alarms set to turn on a group of rhythmic stress-related genes as you grow older. A new study from Oregon State University (conducted with fruit flies, but applicable to human bodies) discovered a collection of genes that are part of a previously unknown stress-response mechanism. This set of genes is a subset of the genes involved in the regulation of daily circadian rhythms, or the “biological clock.” The genes in this newly identified subset appear to “become active and respond to some of the stresses most common in aging, such as cellular and molecular damage, oxidative stress, or even some disease states,”

“These genes may help to combat serious stresses associated with age, disease or environmental challenges, and help explain why aging is often accelerated when the biological clock is disrupted.”

Routine disruptions of circadian rhythms and sleep patterns have been found to lead to shorter lifespans and increased susceptibility to cancer.

Here is an excellent extended article on the research:

Do aging circadian clocks have tricks up their sleeves?[2017]

Here is another good article:

‘Late-life’ genes activated by biological clock to help protect against stress, aging[2017]

The published study is available here:

Circadian deep sequencing reveals stress-response genes that adopt robust rhythmic expression during aging[2017]

All these links have been added in Aging.

Category: Aging, Announcements

There is Something in the Blood

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A massive study has revealed molecular changes that occur in human bodies as they age.

From the Research Abstract:
Disease incidences increase with age, but the molecular characteristics of ageing that lead to increased disease susceptibility remain inadequately understood. Here we perform a whole-blood gene expression meta-analysis in 14,983 individuals…and identify 1,497 genes that are differentially expressed with chronological age. … We further used the gene expression profiles to calculate the ‘transcriptomic age’ of an individual, and show that differences between transcriptomic age and chronological age are associated with biological features linked to aging, such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, fasting glucose, and body mass index. …

Additionally, the work revealed a connection between these genes and factors such as diet, smoking and exercise.

Links to articles about the study as well as the study itself have been placed in Aging:

AGE: IT’S ALL IN YOUR BLOOD
Signs of faster aging process identified through gene research

Published Research:
The transcriptional landscape of age in human peripheral blood

Category: Aging, Announcements

Exercise vs Aging: Yet Again

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You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again: Physical exercise is very important in combatting aging, both the physical aging of your body, as well as the mental aging of your mind.

In this post, we draw together links to four articles on a recent new study about the way that exercise combats physical aging, together with a link to the study abstract. The study was carried out at the Mayo clinic in Rochester, MN, and demonstrated that exercise — particularly high-intensity interval training (HIT) — has profound effects at the cellular level. It may even reverse some of the aging effects in muscle cells, as well as possibly other cells in the body.

The Mayo researchers utilized 36 men and 36 women, broken into two age groups: 18-30 years old and 65-80 years old. Each age group was split into three exercise groups: HIT biking together with treadmill walking, weight training, and mixed biking and weight training. Each group worked out 5 days a week for 12 weeks. Muscle change assessments were based on biopsies taken from the volunteers’ thigh muscles, compared with biopsies taken from a sedentary control group.

All of the exercise groups showed muscle improvement, particularly increases in muscle cell mitochondrial capacity, which is the energy source for all cells. Strikingly, the younger HIT group showed a 49% increase, while the older HIT group showed a dazzling 69% increase. The study also showed that exercise leads to improvement in protein-building ribosomes.

Senior study author, Sreekumbaran Nair said

“Based on everything we know, there’s no substitute for these exercise programs when it comes to delaying the aging process. These things we are seeing cannot be done by any medicine. . . . exercise is critically important to prevent or delay aging. There’s no substitute for that.”

And

“If exercise restores or prevents deterioration of mitochondria and ribosomes in muscle cells, there’s a good chance it does so in other tissues, too. Understanding the pathways that exercise uses to work its magic may make aging more targetable.”

 
The four articles on the study are:

This Workout Might Help Reverse the Aging Process, According to a New Study [2017]

Interval training exercise could be a fountain of youth [2017]

How exercise — interval training in particular — helps your mitochondria stave off old age [2017]

Mayo Clinic Study Identifies How Exercise Staves Off Old Age [2017]

The published study abstract is here:

Enhanced Protein Translation Underlies Improved Metabolic and Physical Adaptations to Different Exercise Training Modes in Young and Old Humans [2017]

All the links have been added to Aging.

Category: Aging, Announcements

Japanese Diet May Help Extend Life

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Many articles and studies have extolled the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet (Search for Mediterranean under Health > Diet). Now the “Japanese diet” has entered the field.

Life expectancy in Japan is among the highest in the world, with Japanese women having the longest life expectancy of anyone in the world, with an average age of 87.

The study enrolled 36,624 men Japanese and 42,920 Japanese women between the ages of 45 and 75, and followed them for 15 years. Those participants who closely followed government recommended dietary guidelines were 15% less likely to die over the 15 years, and were 22% less likely to die of stroke during those 15 years,

“Our findings suggest that balanced consumption of energy, grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, eggs, soy products, dairy products, confectionaries, and alcoholic beverages can contribute to longevity by decreasing the risk of death, predominantly from cardiovascular disease, in the Japanese population,” the authors wrote.

Links to articles about the study, together with the study itself, have be published in Health > Diet:
Following a Japanese diet may help you live longer
Japanese Diet Filled High In Grains, Vegetables, And Fish May Lower Heart Disease Risk

Published Research:
Quality of diet and mortality among Japanese men and women: Japan Public Health Center based prospective study

Category: Aging, Announcements, Health