Aging
Exercising to improve our cardiovascular strength may protect us from cognitive impairment as we age, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Montreal and its affiliated Institut universitaire de gératrie de Montréal Research Centre.
The researchers worked with 31 young people between the ages of 18 and 30 and 54 older participants aged between 55 and 75. This enabled the team to compare the older participants within their peer group and against the younger group who obviously have not begun the aging processes in question. None of the participants had physical or mental…
The "Great Recession" and over 90 million Americans unemployed has impacted everything except the stock market and hole sales of wealthy elites, but 40 percent of elders reported a decrease in "financial strain" between 2006 and 2010.
But that wasn't the intent, sociologists instead wanted to link mood-altering drugs and mental healthy to the economic malaise. The scholars drew on 5,205 respondents from the Health and Retirement Study, the largest ongoing national study of adults age 51 and older. 25 percent of respondents indicated an increase in financial strain between…
As children learn arithmetic, they gradually switch from solving problems by counting on their fingers to pulling facts from memory. That comes more easily for some kids than for others and no one knows why but new brain images and a longitudinal provide some clues to how the brain reorganizes itself as children learn math facts.
A precisely orchestrated group of brain changes, many involving the memory center in the hippocampus, are essential to the transformation, according to a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine in Nature Neuroscience. The authors believe they can help…
Though being overweight and obese is linked to many health issues, everything from sleep apnea and an incredibly broad metabolic syndrome designation to stranger categories like pre-diabetes, there are lots of instances where obese people survive better and live longer. Scholars term it a paradox but in reality weight and BMI are not magic bullets, curing them will not stop diseases nor will having them be a death sentence.
Sepsis is one example. University of Michigan Health System researchers analyzing 1,404 Medicare beneficiaries found that heavier patients were more likely to survive…
It has been understood for many years that tendons are highly prone to injury and that this likelihood increases as they age. Why this happens is currently poorly understood. A recent study went about examining the mechanisms that cause aging in the tendons of horses and find it may be possible to design better treatment for humans.
Young and old horses have similar tendon properties to those of humans so a team of researchers performed a range of tests to profile the types, quantities and proportions of proteins present in the tendon. They found marked differences in the proteins in young…
Studies have shown that being a 'night owl', like people who claim to multitask, is something of a myth - people perform better in the mornings whether they are night owls or morning people people - and a new study finds that becomes more pronounced with age.
Older adults tested in the morning not only perform better on demanding cognitive tasks but also activate the same brain networks responsible for paying attention and suppressing distraction as younger adults, according to a study in Psychology and Aging. The authors say this some of the strongest evidence yet that there are noticeable…
Baby Boomers, a trend in births that happened when soldiers returned home from World War II, started off their lives being critical of American culture and having a sense of entitlement about how the world should reshape itself to suit them. But now, compared to Generation X and Millennials, they may be the last group with a true sense of responsibility.
While Generation X got validation from Winona Ryder characters and Millennials claim to be above working because rent and health insurance is handled by parents, Baby Boomers continue on because they must - even when it comes to the…
Over 5 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer's disease. It is the most common form of dementia and is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. Desperate families latch onto just about any possible treatment, including supplements. Do they work? Not so far.
But in a retrospective study, older adults involved in the
Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI)
study were assessed with neuropsychological tests and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) every six months. The group included 229 older adults who were cognitively normal; 397 who were diagnosed with…
2,500 years after acupuncture - inserting needles into the body to control energy flow - was first used by the ancient Chinese, it remains in the realm of alternative medicine.
Some people swear by it, just like some swear by Atkins Diets and homeopathy, but alternative medicine does not become real medicine unless it survives double-blind clinical trials, and acupuncture can't beat placebos in those. As a substitute, we get a meta-analysis of randomized, clinical trials. A new meta analysis in Menopause indicates that acupuncture can affect the severity and frequency of hot flashes for…
Cancer, it is said, is nature's way of telling us to 'get the hint'. At a certain age, we all have more friends who get cancer. The older we get, the more often it happens. Even if we somehow slow aging, we would end up with cancer eventually, just like Gilles-Eric Séralini's experimental rats were predestined to get cancer when he let them live long enough.
Cancer is inevitable.
Perhaps not all cancer. The risk of developing several common cancers decreases with age, which has been a mystery. Mystery or not, it is what it is and researchers want to be able to take advantage of what they know…