As my practice and I age, I find that most of my patients worry about “Old Timers’ Disease. I address their concerns two ways: one, I recommend the book NATURAL CAUSES so they may age with wisdom, humor and grace. Two, I review the pillars of brain ageing—diet and exercise. (See first article below). Three, I recommend keeping our brains and hearts active and engaged—learn a language and nurture close relationships. Four, I mention certain supplements, which unfortunately, are not the magic bullets marketers claim them to be. Five, I think I am starting to forget how to count…
Hugo Rodier, MD
Older people with high BMI and big waistline may be more likely to have dementia
Newsweek (7/24, Gander) reports researchers found that older people “with a high BMI and a big waistline…could be more likely to have a sign of brain aging linked to dementia.” The findings were published in Neurology. Medscape (7/24, Anderson, Subscription Publication) reports the researchers found that “greater body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) are associated with cortical thinning in the brain, especially in early old age.”
Comments: we now call caramelization of the brain type III diabetes. It is due to diets high in refined sugars. Just like heart disease has been shown to be a sugar problem, so is brain dysfunction. Have you ever wondered why we get sleepy after a heavy meal high in refined carbs? Higher insulin levels have a sedating, dulling effect on the brain.
Frequent Sleeping Pill Use Linked to Increased Dementia Risk
Megan Brooks, Medscape July 19, 2019
LOS ANGELES — Frequent use of sleep medications may increase the risk of future cognitive impairment, new research suggests. Investigators Yue Leng, PhD, and Kristine Yaffe, MD, University of California, San Francisco, found that older adults who reported taking sleep medications often were more than 40% more likely to develop dementia over 15 years than their peers who rarely, or never, took sleeping pills.
“While we don’t know the exact mechanism underlying this association, we hope this research will raise caution among clinicians when prescribing sleep medications to those at high risk for dementia,” said Leng. She reported the results during a press briefing here at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2019.
“Sleeping pills are one of the most frequently prescribed medications in the US among older adults. It’s estimated that 1 in every 5 older adults takes sleep medications regularly,” said Leng. “Surprisingly, the effects of sleep medication use in older adults is poorly understood. Most previous research has focused on short-term adverse events related to use of sleep medications, such as increased risk of falls or increased risk of short-term memory loss. The long-term effects of sleep medication use on cognition is unclear,” Leng noted. To evaluate ties between sleep medication use and dementia risk, Leng and colleagues examined 3068 black and white community-dwelling older adults without dementia aged 70 to 79 years from the Health, Aging, and Body Composition (Health ABC) study. Participants reported sleep medication use in 1997–1998 and were followed until 2013.
Comments: the same goes for anxiolytics like Xanax. They dull a lot more than just your high-strung nerves.
Keto-Like Diet May Improve Cognition in MCI, Early Alzheimer’s
Michelle E. Grady, Medscape July 03, 2019
A ketogenic diet may boost cognition in older adults who have early signs of dementia, preliminary research suggests. Investigators at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, found that when older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) switched their diet to a low-carbohydrate, high-fat ketogenic diet, they experienced modest improvement in memory, as measured by a standardized test.
“If we can confirm these preliminary findings, using dietary changes to mitigate cognitive loss in early-stage dementia would be a real game-changer. It’s something that 400-plus experimental drugs haven’t been able to do in clinical trials,” principal investigator Jason Brandt, PhD, professor of psychiatry, behavioral sciences, and neurology, said in a release. The study was published in the April issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Comments: a ketogenic diet is high in fats. Remember that our brain is made up of 80% fats. (We won’t talk about people whose brains are 100% fat). Besides, the more healthy fats you eat (avocados, nuts, fish), the less sugar you eat.
Links between Maternal Migraine and Infant Colic
Damian McNamara, Medscape July 19, 2019
PHILADELPHIA — Mothers, but not fathers, with migraine are significantly more likely to have an infant with colic, new research suggests.
In a large cross-sectional study, infants 4 to 8 weeks old were 70% more likely to have colic when born to mothers with migraine compared with babies born to unaffected women. “There was a clear association no matter how we asked about migraine,” lead author Amy Gelfand, MD, University of California, San Francisco, told attendees here at the American Headache Society (AHS) Annual Meeting 2019. “Infant colic being associated with migraine really opens up a door for us to think what migraine looks like in the developing brain,” she said. “People will ask me if these babies are really having a headache. Clearly, they are experiencing distress.”
Gelfand noted that the babies with colic could be inheriting an increased sensitivity to stimuli. “They may be experiencing the fundamental migraine [experience] and expressing it in the only way they can,” she said. Previous case-control studies examining an association between migraine and infant colic were limited by “some recall bias,” Gelfand said.
Conversations about symptoms sounded very similar when she was a child neurology resident talking to parents of children with colic and when she did a headache rotation and talked to patients with migraine. As reported by Medscape Medical News, Gelfand conducted a smaller cross-sectional survey study during her residency to find out more. Among the 154 mother–baby pairs, 22 infants had colic and 28 mothers reported migraines. “We found mothers with migraine were more than 2.5 times as likely to have a baby with colic,” she said.
Comments: if you are having trouble figuring out the connection between colic and migraines, you need a primer on the brain-gut connection, a concept frequently covered in these pages.
Early Risers May Have Lower Breast Cancer Risk
By Lisa Rapaport, Reuters Health Information, July 15, 2019
“Women who like to wake up early every day may be less likely to develop breast cancer than women who prefer to sleep in, a recent study suggests.
While previous studies have linked inconsistent sleep schedules and getting too much rest to an increased risk of breast cancer, researchers haven’t looked as often at how much women’s wake-up time might impact this risk, researchers note in a report in the BMJ, June 26.
For the current analysis, researchers analyzed genetic variants associated with three sleep traits: sleep duration, insomnia, and morning or evening chronotype, referring to early or late risers. They looked at data on 180,216 women in the UK Biobank study and 228,951 women in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) study.
Comments: I believe there is more than Zs involved here. It depends on quality of sleep, which is highly influenced by levels of stress. The more stressed we are, the more our adrenal glands have to work. The ore they work, the more they suppress our immune-detoxification system in the gut. Remember that cancer is 85% environmental. Poor detoxification is the main reason we get cancers, not genetics.
The Use of Antibiotics and Risk of Kidney Stones
J. Curr Opin Nephrol Hypertens. 2019;28(4):311-315.
Recent evidence suggests a possible, causal role of antibiotics in the development of kidney stones. A plausible explanation for this finding includes alterations in the microbiome, especially in oxalate-degrading bacteria like O. formigenes, and others, leading to increased urinary oxalate excretion, and ultimately, the development of nephrolithiasis. Other effects on the microbiome are possible but not yet supported. Antibiotics are widely prescribed, with children receiving more antibiotics than other age groups, often for inappropriate reasons. Ample reasons to encourage antibiotic stewardship already exist, but the possible role of antibiotic exposure in contributing to the increasing prevalence of kidney stones in children and adults is one additional rationale.
Comments: we have bat up on or microbiome long enough. We need to stop unnecessary antibiotics, acid-blocking drugs, refined sugar diets and pesticides.
Osteoarthritis of the hips or knees associated with increased risk of dying from heart disease, heart failure
According to the New York Times (7/18, Bakalar), “men and women with osteoarthritis of the hips or knees were at higher risk of dying from heart disease or heart failure.” Investigators arrived at that conclusion after tracking the health of “469,177 residents of southern Sweden who ranged in age from 45 to 84” for “for up to 11 years.” The findings were published in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage.
Comments: another puzzling connection? This time you have to ponder a bit. The answer at the end of newsletter.
Women exposed to solvents on the job may be more likely to have children with autism than mothers without such occupational exposure
Reuters (7/16, Rapaport) reports, “Women who are exposed to solvents on the job may be more likely to have children with autism than mothers without this occupational exposure,” researchers concluded after analyzing “data on work histories for 750 mothers and 891 fathers to assess the frequency and intensity of any occupational exposure before and during pregnancy for 16 agents that have been linked to neurological or congenital abnormalities in children.” The findings were published online June 27 in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Comments: autism is an environmental disease. The more our immune-detoxification system is compromised, the higher the chances of autism.
Consumption of sugary drinks may be linked to higher risk of cancer
New York Times (7/10, Bakalar) reports that research “suggests there may be a link between the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks and fruit juices and the development of cancer.” The findings(7/10, Subscription Publication) were published in BMJ. Bloomberg (7/10, Fourcade) reports, “Increased daily consumption of about 3.4 ounces of soda – roughly a third of a can of Coke – was associated with an 18% greater risk of some cancers.” Meanwhile, “the likelihood of breast tumors alone rose even more, by 22%.” The study also found that “when people drank the same amount of unsweetened fruit juice, they were also more likely to develop cancer.”
Comments: this is old news. Dr. Warberg won the Nobel Price in Medicine in 1931 proving that refined sugars compromise our immune-detoxification system.
Why is there an association between arthritis and heart disease?
The common denominator is INFLAMMATION. Remember it is generated by an upset Microbiome, which constitutes 2/3 of our immune system. See blog “The way to a man’s heart.”
