Recent Longevity News for the seven days ending 1/18/12.  You should consult your doctor if you are taking any medications.

Why Coffee May Reduce Diabetes Risk - WebMD, 1/13/12 - "The Chinese researchers looked at three major active compounds in coffee and their effect on stopping the toxic accumulation of the protein: ... Caffeine ... Caffeic acid or CA ... Chlorogenic acid or CGA ... All three had an effect. However, caffeic acid was best" - Note:  I've always thought that artichoke extract which is 6% chlorogenic acid would do the same thing:

• Chlorogenic acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "Chlorogenic acid is a hydroxycinnamic acid, a member of a family of naturally occurring organic compounds. These are esters of polyphenolic caffeic acid and cyclitol (-)-quinic acid"

Diet counts: Iron intake in teen years can impact brain in later life - Science Daily, 1/12/12 - "healthy brain wiring in adults depended on having good iron levels in your teenage years ... This connection was a lot stronger than we expected, especially as we were looking at people who were young and healthy -- none of them would be considered iron-deficient ... You wouldn't think the iron in our diet would affect the brain so much in our teen years. But it turns out that it matters very much. Because myelin speeds your brain's communications, and iron is vital for making myelin, poor iron levels in childhood erode your brain reserves which you need later in life to protect against aging and Alzheimer's" - See Feosol Ferrous Sulfate Iron Supplement Therapy, Tablets - 125 ea (Pack of 2) at Amazon.com.

70 percent of Europeans suffer from low vitamin D levels, experts say - Science Daily, 1/10/12 - "Europeans have suffered an alarming decrease in their levels of this vitamin. In their opinion, the ideal would be to maintain blood levels above 30 ng/ml. Vitamin D is essential to the immune system and processes such as calcium absorption" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Paula’s big fat secret -  The Daily, 1/13/12 - Paula Deen can't eat her own dishes because she has diabetes.

Risks - When Too Much Vitamin D Is Too Much - NYTimes.com, 1/12/12 - "above 21 units, each 10-unit increase in vitamin D was accompanied by a 0.06 milligrams per deciliter increase in CRP"

Pool Chlorine Tied to Lung Damage in Elite Swimmers - Medscape, 1/12/12 - "samples taken from swimmers' lungs had nearly six times as many immune cells associated with asthma and allergies as the lung tissue of healthy subjects - and a similar amount to what was found in the group with mild asthma"

Are Fears That Deodorant Causes Breast Cancer Unfounded? - WebMD, 1/12/12 - "It has to do with certain underarm products that contain preservatives called parabens. These chemicals can act like the hormone estrogen in the body ... Parabens such as methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, isopropylparaben, and isobutylparaben are also found in makeup, moisturizers, and hair care and shaving products ... The new study included 40 women with breast cancer who chose to have a mastectomy. Researchers looked at four samples of breast tissue from each woman ... Fully 99% of the tissue samples had evidence of at least one paraben, and 60% showed evidence of five ... The study suggests that if there is a relationship between parabens and breast cancer, it may be a complex one"

More vitamin E linked to better mental function: Study - Nutra USA, 1/11/12 - "Alzheimer patients were 85% less likely to have the highest levels of vitamin E, compared with people with normal cognitive function ... There are eight forms of vitamin E: four tocopherols (alpha, beta, gamma, delta) and four tocotrienols (alpha, beta, gamma, delta) ... the new study is said to be the first to evaluate all the forms of vitamin E in relation to Alzheimer’s disease ... Consumers should be taking a full spectrum vitamin E especially for improving/ preserving cognitive health and performance" - [Abstract] - See Jarrow FamilE (contains all eight members of the vitamin E family, includes Tocomin) at Amazon.com.

A diet rich in slowly digested carbs reduces markers of inflammation in overweight and obese adults - Science Daily, 1/11/12 - "Among overweight and obese adults, a diet rich in slowly digested carbohydrates, such as whole grains, legumes and other high-fiber foods, significantly reduces markers of inflammation associated with chronic disease ... a low-glycemic-load diet reduced a biomarker of inflammation called C-reactive protein by about 22 percent ... C-reactive protein is associated with an increased risk for many cancers as well as cardiovascular disease ... a low-glycemic-load diet modestly increased -- by about 5 percent -- blood levels of a protein hormone called adiponectin ... a low-glycemic-load diet modestly increased -- by about 5 percent -- blood levels of a protein hormone called adiponectin. This hormone plays a key role in protecting against several cancers, including breast cancer, as well as metabolic disorders such as type-2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and hardening of the arteries"

Breakfast fail! Worst supermarket cereals revealed - MSNBC, 1/11/12 - "Eating breakfast pays off—numerous studies indicate that eating in the A.M. is key in losing and maintaining weight. Not only have studies shown that regular breakfast eaters have lower BMIs, but they also typically have lower waist-to-hip ratios than those that skip. Cereal is a great option—it’s a quick and convenient way to get in on those belly-shrinking benefits. That said, not all cereals are equal"

A Love Drug? Oxytocin, the 'Cuddle Chemical' to Scientists, Makes Mothers More Kind, Say Researchers - ABC News, 1/11/12 - "There is hope that the hormone could be used to help patients suffering from a range of psychiatric disorders that affect social interactions, including autism and schizophrenia ... They found a clear correlation between the levels of oxytocin and the amount of attention each new mother paid to her baby. The first trimester of the pregnancy turned out to be the most important because higher levels of the hormone during that period coincided with much more bonding and affection after the birth ... At about the same time as the Israel study, Paul Zak of Claremont University in California was giving doses of oxytocin, and a placebo, to participants who were instructed to split a sum of money with a stranger. The results were "overwhelming," according to that study. Those given oxytocin offered 80 percent more money than those given a placebo ... in the first hour or two after getting the hormone, the monkeys actually became more selfish. It took a couple of hours for them to become more social and compassionate" - Click here to purchase Oxytocin Factor or see oxytocin 6x5iu tablets at International Antiaging Systems.

Omega-3 fatty acids could prevent and treat nerve damage, research suggests - Science Daily, 1/11/12 - "omega-3 fatty acids could play a significant role in speeding recovery from nerve injury ... a high level of omega-3 fatty acids helped mice to recover from sciatic nerve injury more quickly and more fully, and that their muscles were less likely to waste following nerve damage" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Statins linked with small diabetes risk - MSNBC, 1/10/12 - It's a two and a half minute video.

Abstracts from this week's Doctor's Guide Nutrition/Dietetics plus abstracts from my RSS feeds (Click here for the journals, the PubMed ones at the top):

Plasma vitamin C concentrations in patients on routine hemodialysis and its relationship to patients morbidity and mortality Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2011 Jul;81(4):197-203 - "hemodialysis (HD) patients ... Forty-nine patients (53.8 %) had low levels of vitamin C concentration. There was a significant relationship between vitamin C insufficiency and presence of any co-morbidity in HD patients (p < 0.05). There was a significant difference in vitamin C concentrations between patients without co-morbidities and those with cardiovascular ones (F[2,88]=3.447, p = 0.036). Twenty-two (24.2 %) patients died over a median duration of 227 days. There was a significant difference in time to death of patients with and without low levels of vitamin C concentration (p = 0.04). Conclusions: The results showed lower plasma vitamin C levels in HD patients who suffered any co-morbidity and sooner time to death in these patients" - See vitamin C products at Amazon.com.

Vitamin D Status and Cytokine Levels in Patients with Crohns Disease - Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2011 Jul;81(4):205-10 - "Results: IL-10 levels were significantly lower in patients with vitamin D insufficiency compared with the vitamin D replete group (mean and SE 2.48 +/- 0.51 v 6.77 +/- 2.49 pg/mL, p < 0.001). There were, however, no differences in serum TNF-alpha or CRP levels based on vitamin D status. The use of a vitamin D supplement at a low dose (200 IU) did not significantly influence IL-10 levels. Conclusion: Circulating levels of IL-10, but not TNF-alpha, were significantly lower in CD patients with inadequate serum 25(OH)D. This suggests that poor vitamin D status may be linked to reduced anti-inflammatory capacity in this group" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.

Serum antioxidant vitamin levels in patients with coronary heart disease - Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2011 Jul;81(4):211-7 - "Fat mass (FM) ... Based on the results of this study, we propose that high FM, low HDL-C, and low serum antioxidant vitamin levels could be important risk factors for CHD"

Effects of Pycnogenol on endothelial function in patients with stable coronary artery disease: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, cross-over study - Eur Heart J. 2012 Jan 11 - "Patients received Pycnogenol (200 mg/day) for 8 weeks followed by placebo or vice versa on top of standard cardiovascular therapy ... In CAD patients, Pycnogenol treatment was associated with an improvement of FMD from 5.3 +/- 2.6 to 7.0 +/- 3.1 (P < 0.0001), while no change was observed with placebo (5.4 +/- 2.4 to 4.7 +/- 2.0; P = 0.051). This difference between study groups was significant [estimated treatment effect 2.75; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.75, 3.75, P < 0.0001]. 15-F(2t)-Isoprostane, an index of oxidative stress, significantly decreased from 0.71 +/- 0.09 to 0.66 +/- 0.13 after Pycnogenol treatment, while no change was observed in the placebo group (mean difference 0.06 pg/mL with an associated 95% CI (0.01, 0.11), P = 0.012]. Inflammation markers, platelet adhesion, and blood pressure did not change after treatment with Pycnogenol or placebo. Conclusion This study provides the first evidence that the antioxidant Pycnogenol improves endothelial function in patients with CAD by reducing oxidative stress" - See Pycnogenol at Amazon.com.

Subclinical Thyroid Dysfunction and the Risk of Heart Failure in Older Persons at High Cardiovascular Risk - J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Jan 11 - "Over 3.2 yr follow-up, the rate of heart failure was higher for subclinical hyperthyroidism compared with euthyroidism [age- and sex-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) = 2.93, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.37-6.24, P = 0.005; multivariate-adjusted HR = 3.27, 95% CI = 1.52-7.02, P = 0.002). Subclinical hypothyroidism (only at threshold >10 mIU/liter) was associated with heart failure (age- and sex-adjusted HR = 3.01, 95% CI = 1.12-8.11, P = 0.029; multivariate HR = 2.28, 95% CI = 0.84-6.23). There were no strong evidence of an association between subclinical thyroid dysfunction and cardiovascular events or mortality, except in those with TSH below 0.1 or over 10 mIU/liter and not taking pravastatin. Conclusion: Older people at high cardiovascular risk with low or very high TSH along with normal free T(4) appear at increased risk of incident heart failure"

Oral nutritional supplements containing n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids affect quality of life and functional status in lung cancer patients during multimodality treatment: an RCT - Eur J Clin Nutr. 2012 Jan 11 - "(2.02 g eicosapentaenoic acid+0.92 g docosahexaenoic acid/day) or an isocaloric control supplement ... The intervention group reported significantly higher on the quality of life parameters, physical and cognitive function (B=11.6 and B=20.7, P<0.01), global health status (B=12.2, P=0.04) and social function (B=22.1, P=0.04) than the control group after 5 weeks. The intervention group showed a higher Karnofsky Performance Status (B=5.3, P=0.04) than the control group after 3 weeks. Handgrip strength did not significantly differ between groups over time. The intervention group tended to have a higher physical activity than the control group after 3 and 5 weeks (B=6.6, P=0.04 and B=2.5, P=0.05)" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.

Pioglitazone treatment increases COX-2 derived PGI(2) production and reduces oxidative stress in hypertensive rats. Role on vascular function - Br J Pharmacol. 2012 Jan 5 - "PPARγ agonists, glitazones, have cardioprotective and anti-inflammatory actions associated to gene transcription interference. This study analyzes if chronic treatment with pioglitazone of adult spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) alters blood pressure and vascular structure and function, and the possible mechanisms involved Experimental approach ... Pioglitazone treatment, although did not reduce blood pressure in SHR, increased COX-2-derived PGI(2) production, reduced oxidative stress, and increased NO bioavailability, all of them involved on vasoconstrictor responses in resistance arteries. These effects would contribute to the cardioprotective effect of glitazones reported in several pathologies"

Statin Use and Risk of Diabetes Mellitus in Postmenopausal Women in the Women's Health Initiative - Arch Intern Med. 2012 Jan 9 - "The WHI recruited 161 808 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years at 40 clinical centers across the United States from 1993 to 1998 with ongoing follow-up ... Statin use at baseline was associated with an increased risk of DM (hazard ratio [HR], 1.71; 95% CI, 1.61-1.83). This association remained after adjusting for other potential confounders (multivariate-adjusted HR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.38-1.59) and was observed for all types of statin medications"

Serum ferritin levels associated with increased risk for developing CHD in a low-income urban population - Public Health Nutr. 2012 Jan 10:1-8 - "For men, there was a 0.5 % increase in risk for every 10-unit rise in serum ferritin (pmol/l). Other significant predictors included increased BMI, white race, unemployment and C-reactive protein ≥9.5 mg/l. For women, there was a 5.1 % increase in risk per 10-unit rise in serum ferritin (pmol/l). Other significant predictors included increased BMI, lower education, unemployment and C-reactive protein ≥9.5 mg/l"

Vegetarian diets and blood pressure among white subjects: results from the Adventist Health Study-2 (AHS-2) - Public Health Nutr. 2012 Jan 10:1-8 - "Covariate-adjusted regression analyses demonstrated that the vegan vegetarians had lower systolic and diastolic BP (mmHg) than omnivorous Adventists (β = -6.8, P < 0.05 and β = -6.9, P < 0.001). Findings for lacto-ovo vegetarians (β = -9.1, P < 0.001 and β = -5.8, P < 0.001) were similar. The vegetarians (mainly the vegans) were also less likely to be using antihypertensive medications. Defining hypertension as systolic BP > 139 mmHg or diastolic BP > 89 mmHg or use of antihypertensive medications, the odds ratio of hypertension compared with omnivores was 0.37 (95 % CI 0.19, 0.74), 0.57 (95 % CI 0.36, 0.92) and 0.92 (95 % CI 0.50, 1.70), respectively, for vegans, lacto-ovo vegetarians and partial vegetarians. Effects were reduced after adjustment for BMI ... CONCLUSIONS: We conclude from this relatively large study that vegetarians, especially vegans, with otherwise diverse characteristics but stable diets, do have lower systolic and diastolic BP and less hypertension than omnivores. This is only partly due to their lower body mass"

High normal thyroid-stimulating hormone is associated with arterial stiffness in healthy postmenopausal women - J Hypertens. 2012 Jan 5 - "Individuals with serum TSH greater than 2.5 μIU/ml had significantly higher values of PWV when compared with individuals with TSH levels below 2.5 μIU/ml (9.68 +/- 1.97 vs. 8.54 +/- 1.83 m/s; P = 0.030). In multivariate analysis, age, insulin resistance and TSH above 2.5 μIU/ml were the only significant predictors of PWV (TSH, β-coefficient = 0.222; P = 0.014). No associations were found between the remaining markers and levels of thyroid hormones, whereas thyroid antibodies were not associated with any of the arterial markers"

Inverse relationship of serum adiponectin concentration with type 2 diabetes mellitus incidence in middle-aged Japanese workers: 6-year follow-up - Diabetes Metab Res Rev. 2012 Jan 6 - "Age- and sex-adjusted homeostasis model assessment insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was inversely associated with adiponectin quintiles at baseline. During six years of follow-up, 164 individuals developed T2DM. In a fully-adjusted model, hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) of T2DM in Q2 to Q5 compared to Q1 were 0.62 (0.41-0.94), 0.44 (0.25-0.77), 0.40 (0.20-0.78) and 0.85 (0.48-1.49), respectively"

Neat Tech Stuff / "How To's":

• This if the first I've seen this, deli turkey with no sodium nitrate or sodium phosphate:

Health Focus (Memory Loss):

Related Topics:

• Alzheimer's Disease

Popular Supplements:

• B vitamins / ginkgo / acetyl-l-carnitine / red yeast rice / statins / melatonin / NAHD / phosphatidylserine / alpha lipoic acid / Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) / ginseng / vinpocetine / Huperzine A / creatine

Alternative News:

• Vitamins B, C, D and E and Omega-3 Strengthen Older Brains - NYTimes.com, 1/2/12 - "Higher blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin D and vitamin E are associated with better mental functioning in the elderly, a new study has found ... Higher blood levels of trans fats, on the other hand, were significantly associated with impaired mental ability and smaller brain volume"
• Oral folic acid and vitamin B-12 supplementation to prevent cognitive decline in community-dwelling older adults with depressive symptoms--the Beyond Ageing Project: a randomized controlled trial - Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Dec 14 - "FA + vitamin B-12 improved the TICS-M total (P = 0.032; effect size d = 0.17), TICS-M immediate (P = 0.046; d = 0.15), and TICS-M delayed recall (P = 0.013; effect size d = 0.18) scores at 24 mo in comparison with placebo. No significant changes were evident in orientation, attention, semantic memory, processing speed, or informant reports ... Long-term supplementation of daily oral 400 μg FA + 100 μg vitamin B-12 promotes improvement in cognitive functioning after 24 mo, particularly in immediate and delayed memory performance"
• Eating fish reduces risk of Alzheimer's disease - Science Daily, 11/30/11 - "This is the first study to establish a direct relationship between fish consumption, brain structure and Alzheimer's risk ... people who consumed baked or broiled fish at least one time per week had better preservation of gray matter volume on MRI in brain areas at risk for Alzheimer's disease ... Each patient underwent 3-D volumetric MRI of the brain. Voxel-based morphometry, a brain mapping technique that measures gray matter volume, was used to model the relationship between weekly fish consumption at baseline and brain structure 10 years later ... consumption of baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis was positively associated with gray matter volumes in several areas of the brain. Greater hippocampal, posterior cingulate and orbital frontal cortex volumes in relation to fish consumption reduced the risk for five-year decline to MCI or Alzheimer's by almost five-fold ... Consuming baked or broiled fish promotes stronger neurons in the brain's gray matter by making them larger and health"
• B vitamins may slow cognitive decline: Oxford University study - Nutra USA, 10/25/11 - "A daily combination of folic acid, and vitamins B6 and B12 was associated with a 30% reduction in levels of the amino acid homocysteine, and improvements in a range of mental tests, including global cognition and episodic memory ... One interpretation [of the data] is that lowering homocysteine concentrations by administering B vitamins slows brain atrophy, which in turn slows both cognitive and clinical decline ... The Vitacog study involved 266 people over the age of 70 with diagnosed mild cognitive impairment. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either placebo or a B vitamin supplement providing 0.8 mg per day of folic acid, 0.5 mg of vitamin B12 and 20 mg of vitamin B6" - [Abstract]
• Boosting mental performance with fish oil? - Science Daily, 10/21/11 - "overall, taking either of two different types of fish oil supplement for three months had no consistent impact on mental function in 18 -- 35-year-olds, however they did find evidence of reduced mental fatigue and faster reaction times. Contrary to popular belief, these results suggest that taking omega-3 or fish oil supplements may not have an immediate or measureable impact on mental performance in healthy young adults, possibly due to the fact that this population is already performing at its mental peak or that higher doses or longer than 12 weeks supplementation are required ... Interestingly, in the second of these studies it was found that taking DHA-rich fish oil over the same time period did increase blood flow to active areas of the brain during performance of similar mental tasks. The researchers claim these findings could have implications for mental function later on in life, as evidence suggests regularly eating oily fish or taking omega-3 supplements may prevent cognitive decline and dementia, and increased blood flow to the brain may be a mechanism by which this occurs" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Vitamin B12, cognition, and brain MRI measures: A cross-sectional examination - Neurology. 2011 Sep 27;77(13):1276-82 - "Concentrations of all vitamin B12-related markers, but not serum vitamin B12 itself, were associated with global cognitive function and with total brain volume. Methylmalonate levels were associated with poorer episodic memory and perceptual speed, and cystathionine and 2-methylcitrate with poorer episodic and semantic memory. Homocysteine concentrations were associated with decreased total brain volume. The homocysteine-global cognition effect was modified and no longer statistically significant with adjustment for white matter volume or cerebral infarcts. The methylmalonate-global cognition effect was modified and no longer significant with adjustment for total brain volume ... Methylmalonate, a specific marker of B12 deficiency, may affect cognition by reducing total brain volume whereas the effect of homocysteine (nonspecific to vitamin B12 deficiency) on cognitive performance may be mediated through increased white matter hyperintensity and cerebral infarcts. Vitamin B12 status may affect the brain through multiple mechanisms" - See vitamin B12 at Amazon.com.
• Low vitamin B12 levels may lead to brain shrinkage, cognitive problems - Science Daily, 9/26/11 - "Older people with low blood levels of vitamin B12 markers may be more likely to have lower brain volumes and have problems with their thinking skills ... An average of four-and-a-half years later, MRI scans of the participants' brains were taken to measure total brain volume and look for other signs of brain damage ... Having high levels of four of five markers for vitamin B12 deficiency was associated with having lower scores on the cognitive tests and smaller total brain volume ... On the cognitive tests, the scores ranged from -2.18 to 1.42, with an average of 0.23. For each increase of one micromole per liter of homocysteine -- one of the markers of B12 deficiency -- the cognitive scores decreasedby 0.03 standardized units or points" - See vitamin B12 at Amazon.com.
• Effects of n-3 fatty acids, EPA v. DHA, on depressive symptoms, quality of life, memory and executive function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: a 6-month randomised controlled trial - Br J Nutr. 2011 Sep 20:1-12 - "Depressive symptoms may increase the risk of progressing from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to dementia. Consumption of n-3 PUFA may alleviate both cognitive decline and depression ... A total of fifty people aged >65 years with MCI were allocated to receive a supplement rich in EPA (1.67 g EPA+0.16 g DHA/d; n 17), DHA (1.55 g DHA+0.40 g EPA/d; n 18) or the n-6 PUFA linoleic acid (LA; 2.2 g/d; n 15). Treatment allocation was by minimisation based on age, sex and depressive symptoms (Geriatric Depression Scale, GDS). Physiological and cognitive assessments, questionnaires and fatty acid composition of erythrocytes were obtained at baseline and 6 months (completers: n 40; EPA n 13, DHA n 16, LA n 11). Compared with the LA group, GDS scores improved in the EPA (P = 0.04) and DHA (P = 0.01) groups and verbal fluency (Initial Letter Fluency) in the DHA group (P = 0.04). Improved GDS scores were correlated with increased DHA plus EPA (r 0.39, P = 0.02). Improved self-reported physical health was associated with increased DHA. There were no treatment effects on other cognitive or QOL parameters. Increased intakes of DHA and EPA benefited mental health in older people with MCI. Increasing n-3 PUFA intakes may reduce depressive symptoms and the risk of progressing to dementia. This needs to be investigated in larger, depressed samples with MCI" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Aerobic exercise may reduce the risk of dementia, researchers say - Science Daily, 9/7/11 - "Researchers examined the role of aerobic exercise in preserving cognitive abilities and concluded that it should not be overlooked as an important therapy against dementia ... Examples include walking, gym workouts and activities at home such as shoveling snow or raking leaves ... We culled through all the scientific literature we could find on the subject of exercise and cognition, including animal studies and observational studies, reviewing over 1,600 papers, with 130 bearing directly on this issue ... brain imaging studies have consistently revealed objective evidence of favorable effects of exercise on human brain integrity"
• Fish oil's impact on cognition and brain structure identified in new study - Science Daily, 8/17/11 - "Researchers at Rhode Island Hospital's Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorders Center have found positive associations between fish oil supplements and cognitive functioning as well as differences in brain structure between users and non-users of fish oil supplements ... compared to non-users, use of fish oil supplements was associated with better cognitive functioning during the study. However, this association was significant only in those individuals who had a normal baseline cognitive function and in individuals who tested negative for a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's Disease known as APOE4. This is consistent with previous research ... The unique finding, however, is that there was a clear association between fish oil supplements and brain volume ... In other words, fish oil use was associated with less brain shrinkage in patients taking these supplements during the ADNI study compared to those who didn't report using them" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Exercise has numerous beneficial effects on brain health and cognition, review suggests - Science Daily, 7/25/11 - "In a new review article highlighting the results of more than a hundred recent human and animal studies on this topic, Michelle W. Voss, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her colleagues show that both aerobic exercise and strength training play a vital role in maintaining brain and cognitive health throughout life ... The review suggests that aerobic exercise is important for getting a head start during childhood on cognitive abilities that are important throughout life. For example, physical inactivity is associated with poorer academic performance and results on standard neuropsychological tests, while exercise programs appear to improve memory, attention, and decision-making. These effects also extend to young and elderly adults, with solid evidence for aerobic training benefiting executive functions, including multi-tasking, planning, and inhibition, and increasing the volume of brain structures important for memory"
• French adults' cognitive performance after daily supplementation with antioxidant vitamins and minerals at nutritional doses: a post hoc analysis of the Supplementation in Vitamins and Mineral Antioxidants (SU.VI.MAX) trial - Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Jul 20 - "This study included 4447 French participants aged 45-60 y who were enrolled in the SU.VI.MAX study (1994-2002), which was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial. From 1994 to 2002, participants received daily vitamin C (120 mg), β-carotene (6 mg), vitamin E (30 mg), selenium (100 μg), and zinc (20 mg) in combination or as a placebo. In 2007-2009, the cognitive performance of participants was assessed with 4 neuropsychological tests (6 tasks). Principal components analysis (PCA) was performed to identify cognitive-function summary scores. Associations between antioxidant supplementation and cognitive functions, in the full sample and by subgroups, were estimated through ANOVA and expressed as mean differences and 95% CIs. Subgroup analyses were performed according to baseline characteristics ... Subjects receiving active antioxidant supplementation had better episodic memory scores (mean difference: 0.61; 95% CI: 0.02, 1.20). PCA indicated 2 factors that were interpreted as showing verbal memory and executive functioning. Verbal memory was improved by antioxidant supplementation only in subjects who were nonsmokers or who had low serum vitamin C concentrations at baseline"
• Exercise Sharpens Older Minds - WebMD, 7/20/11 - "Two new studies add to growing evidence that physical activity helps to keep older people's brains sharp ... women in the highest two-fifths of physical activity had substantially lower rates of cognitive decline than women in the lowest exercise bracket ... In the second study, researchers used a more objective measure of energy expended during physical activity, employing the so-called doubly labeled water technique to determine how much water a person loses ... Over the next two to five years, those in the highest third of energy expenditure were substantially less likely to develop clinical cognitive impairment than those in the lowest third ... About 2% of people in the highest third suffered declines in cognitive function, compared with 5% in the middle third and 17% in the lowest third"
• Habitual sugar intake and cognitive function among middle-aged and older Puerto Ricans without diabetes - Br J Nutr. 2011 Jun 1:1-10 - "Intake of added sugars, mainly fructose and sucrose, has been associated with risk factors for cognitive impairment, such as obesity, the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. The objective of this analysis was to examine whether habitual intakes of total sugars, added sugars, sugar-sweetened beverages or sweetened solid foods are associated with cognitive function. The present study included 737 participants without diabetes, aged 45-75 years, from the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study, 2004-9. Cognitive function was measured with a battery of seven tests: Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), word list learning, digit span, clock drawing, figure copying, and Stroop and verbal fluency tests. Usual dietary intake was assessed with a validated FFQ. Greater intakes of total sugars, added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages, but not of sugar-sweetened solid foods, were significantly associated with lower MMSE score, after adjusting for covariates. Adjusted OR for cognitive impairment (MMSE score < 24) were 2.23 (95 % CI 1.24, 3.99) for total sugars and 2.28 (95 % CI 1.26, 4.14) for added sugars, comparing the highest with lowest intake quintiles. Greater intake of total sugars was also significantly associated with lower word list learning score. In conclusion, higher sugar intake appears to be associated with lower cognitive function, but longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the direction of causality"
• Nutritional Supplement Boosts Cognition in Healthy Women - Medscape, 6/21/11 - "Citicoline, a naturally occurring substance found in the brain and liver and marketed as a nutritional supplement, enhanced aspects of cognition in healthy women and may have a role in mitigating the cognitive decline associated with normal aging ... It may also improve the attention deficits associated with psychiatric disorders ... The women were divided into 3 groups of 20 and randomly assigned to receive a daily oral citicoline dose of 250 mg (low dose) or 500 mg (high dose) or placebo for 28 days ... participants who received low- or high-dose citicoline showed improved attention, demonstrating fewer commission and omission errors on the CPT-II compared with the placebo group" - See citicholine at Amazon.com.
• Mystery ingredient in coffee boosts protection against Alzheimer's disease - Science Daily, 6/21/11 - "A yet unidentified component of coffee interacts with the beverage's caffeine, which could be a surprising reason why daily coffee intake protects against Alzheimer's disease. A new Alzheimer's mouse study by researchers at the University of South Florida found that this interaction boosts blood levels of a critical growth factor that seems to fight off the Alzheimer's disease process ... The new study does not diminish the importance of caffeine to protect against Alzheimer's. Rather it shows that caffeinated coffee induces an increase in blood levels of a growth factor called GCSF (granulocyte colony stimulating factor). GCSF is a substance greatly decreased in patients with Alzheimer's disease and demonstrated to improve memory in Alzheimer's mice ... The boost in GCSF levels is important, because the researchers also reported that long-term treatment with coffee (but not decaffeinated coffee) enhances memory in Alzheimer's mice. Higher blood GCSF levels due to coffee intake were associated with better memory ... First, GCSF recruits stem cells from bone marrow to enter the brain and remove the harmful beta-amyloid protein that initiates the disease. GCSF also creates new connections between brain cells and increases the birth of new neurons in the brain ... An increasing body of scientific literature indicates that moderate consumption of coffee decreases the risk of several diseases of aging, including Parkinson's disease, Type II diabetes and stroke"
• Fatty Acids and Cognitive Decline in Women - Medscape, 6/13/11 - "In this cohort of older women, greater MUFA intake was associated with less cognitive decline over a 3-year period. Previous studies generally but not invariably support this association. One previous prospective study found greater dietary MUFA intake to be associated with less cognitive decline,[10] a second found a trend in the same direction,[9] a third found a trend in the same direction in restricted analyses,[6] and three others were null.[7,8,11] None of the null studies had multiple measures of diet; one assessed diet using a measure of fatty acid composition of erythrocyte membranes,[7] but that study assessed cognitive decline exclusively using the Mini-Mental State Examination, which is probably not as sensitive as the neuropsychological test battery used in this study ... MUFA is thought to be one of the major protective components of the traditional Mediterranean diet, in which it is derived primarily from olive oil (median 46 g/d).[10] Two recent prospective studies of the Mediterranean diet have found greater adherence to be associated with less cognitive decline and lower incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD).[31,32] One of these studies found an effect of the Mediterranean diet on an individual cognitive domain, namely memory.[31] This finding is consistent with the observed protective effect of MUFA on memory in the WHI CCW. In addition, the current study found an association between MUFA and less decline in visual–spatial abilities (copying and matching), a finding not previously made to the knowledge of the authors of the current study. Decline in visuospatial function has been associated with driving errors in older adults[33] and has also been suggested as a potential predictor (along with amnestic impairment) of transition from mild cognitive impairment to AD ... Several pathways may explain the apparent relationship between MUFA intake and cognitive function. MUFA and MUFA derivatives have antiinflammatory effects in vivo,[35,36] which may be important because chronic inflammation appears to be a precursor of symptomatic AD.[37–39] Oxidative stress has also been demonstrated in patients with mild cognitive impairment and AD,[40] and derivatives from MUFA, including low-molecular-weight phenols, have been found to have antioxidant effects.[41] MUFA may also exert their potentially beneficial effects on cognition indirectly by decreasing cardiovascular risk by reducing macrophage uptake of plasma oxidized low-density lipoprotein, apolipoprotein B, and f triglycerides" - Click here for my olive oil mayonnaise recipe.
• Science builds for attention boosting potential of Cognizin Citicoline - Nutra USA, 5/18/11 - "Citicoline has been shown to have a variety of cognitive-enhancing and neuroregenerative properties in pre-clinical and clinical studies ... Our findings suggest that citicoline may mitigate the cognitive decline associated with normal aging and may ameliorate attentional deficits associated with psychiatric disorders" - See citicholine at Amazon.com.
• Musical experience offsets some aging effects: Older musicians excel in memory and hearing speech in noise compared to non-musicians - Science Daily, 5/11/11 - "when compared to their non-musician counterparts -- musicians 45- to 65-years-old excel in auditory memory and the ability to hear speech in noisy environments ... Difficulty hearing speech in noise is among the most common complaints of older adults, but age-related hearing loss only partially accounts for this impediment that can lead to social isolation and depression ... It's well known that adults with virtually the same hearing profile can differ dramatically in their ability to hear speech in noise ... The musicians -- who began playing an instrument at age 9 or earlier and consistently played an instrument throughout their lives -- bested the non-musician group in all but visual working memory, where both groups showed nearly identical ability ... Music training "fine-tunes" the nervous system"
• Green tea extract shows memory boosting activity: Study - Nutra USA, 5/4/11 - "A combination of a green tea extract with L-theanine was associated with improvements in immediate and delayed recall, and general memory, according to findings published in the Journal of Medicinal Foods ... As a natural ingredient with a long history of consumption, LGNC-07 [ – a combination of green tea extract and L-theanine - ] should be considered as a potential nutraceutical candidate for enhancing cognitive performance" - [Abstract] - See Jarrow Formulas, Theanine 200 at iHerb.
• Moderate exercise dramatically improves brain blood flow in elderly women - Science Daily, 4/12/11 - "it's never too late for women to reap the benefits of moderate aerobic exercise. In a 3-month study of 16 women age 60 and older, brisk walking for 30-50 minutes three or four times per week improved blood flow through to the brain as much as 15% ... At study's end, the team measured blood flow in the women's carotid arteries again and found that cerebral blood flow increased an average of 15% and 11% in the women's left and right internal carotid arteries, respectively. The women's VO2 max increased roughly 13%, their blood pressure dropped an average of 4%, and their heart rates decreased approximately 5% ... A steady, healthy flow of blood to the brain achieves two things. First, the blood brings oxygen, glucose and other nutrients to the brain, which are vital for the brain's health. Second, the blood washes away brain metabolic wastes such as amyloid-beta protein released into the brain's blood vessels. Amyloid-beta protein has been implicated in the development of Alzheimer's disease"
• Older age memory loss tied to stress hormone receptor in brain - Science Daily, 4/6/11 - "one receptor was activated by low levels of cortisol, which helped memory. However, once levels of this stress hormone were too high they spilled over onto a second receptor. This activates brain processes that contribute to memory impairment ... high levels of the stress hormone in aged mice made them less able to remember how to navigate a maze. The memory recall problem was reversed when the receptor linked to poor memory was blocked ... lowering the levels of these stress hormones will prevent them from activating a receptor in the brain that is bad for memory ... The researchers are currently investigating a new chemical compound which blocks an enzyme -- 11beta-HSD1 -- that is involved in producing stress hormones within cells"
• Exercise helps overweight children think better, do better in math - Science Daily, 2/10/11 - "Regular exercise improves the ability of overweight, previously inactive children to think, plan and even do math ... MRIs showed those who exercised experienced increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex -- an area associated with complex thinking, decision making and correct social behavior -- and decreased activity in an area of the brain that sits behind it. The shift forward appears consistent with more rapidly developing cognitive skills ... And the more they exercised, the better the result. Intelligence scores increased an average 3.8 points in those exercising 40 minutes per day after school for three months with a smaller benefit in those exercising 20 minutes daily ... Animal studies have shown that aerobic activity increases growth factors so the brain gets more blood vessels, more neurons and more connections between neurons. Studies in older adults have shown exercise benefits the brain and Davis's study extends the science to children and their ability to learn in school"
• Antioxidant effect of astaxanthin on phospholipid peroxidation in human erythrocytes - Br J Nutr. 2011 Jan 31:1-9 - "Phospholipid hydroperoxides (PLOOH) accumulate abnormally in the erythrocytes of dementia patients, and dietary xanthophylls (polar carotenoids such as astaxanthin) are hypothesised to prevent the accumulation ... After 12 weeks of treatment, erythrocyte astaxanthin concentrations were higher in both the 6 and 12 mg astaxanthin groups than in the placebo group. In contrast, erythrocyte PLOOH concentrations were lower in the astaxanthin groups than in the placebo group. In the plasma, somewhat lower PLOOH levels were found after astaxanthin treatment. These results suggest that astaxanthin supplementation results in improved erythrocyte antioxidant status and decreased PLOOH levels, which may contribute to the prevention of dementia" - See astaxanthin products at iHerb.
• Exercise May Slow Age-Related Memory Loss - Science Daily, 1/31/11 - "A new study suggests moderate aerobic exercise may slow or even reverse age-related memory loss in older adults by increasing the size of the hippocampus ... one year of moderate aerobic exercise, like walking, in a group of older adults increased the volume of hippocampus by 2%, which effectively reversed the age-associated shrinkage by one to two years ... Brain scans taken at the start of the study and again one year later showed that the right and left sides of the hippocampus increased by 2.12% and 1.97%, respectively, in the aerobic exercise group ... these regions decreased in volume in the comparison group by 1.40% and 1.43%, respectively"
• Adherence to a Mediterranean-type dietary pattern and cognitive decline in a community population - Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Dec 22 - "investigated whether adherence to a Mediterranean dietary pattern or to the Healthy Eating Index-2005 (HEI-2005) is associated with cognitive change in older adults ... For both scoring systems, higher scores connote greater adherence ... Mean (+/-SD) scores for participants were 28.2 +/- 0.1 for the MedDiet and 61.2 +/- 9.6 for the HEI-2005. White participants had higher energy-adjusted MedDiet scores but lower HEI-2005 scores than did black participants. Higher MedDiet scores were associated with slower rates of cognitive decline (β = +0.0014 per 1-point increase, SEE = 0.0004, P = 0.0004) after adjustment for age, sex, race, education, participation in cognitive activities, and energy. No such associations were observed for HEI-2005 scores"
• Creatine may beef up brain function: Study - Nutra USA, 12/13/10 - "A battery of cognitive tests were performed by the women, both before and after the five days of study, with results showing that memory improved by about 40 percent in the vegetarians consuming the creatine supplements" - [Abstract] - See creatine at Amazon.com.
• The influence of creatine supplementation on the cognitive functioning of vegetarians and omnivores - Br J Nutr. 2010 Dec 1:1-6 - "Creatine supplementation influences brain functioning as indicated by imaging studies and the measurement of oxygenated Hb ... Creatine supplementation did not influence measures of verbal fluency and vigilance. However, in vegetarians rather than in those who consume meat, creatine supplementation resulted in better memory. Irrespective of dietary style, the supplementation of creatine decreased the variability in the responses to a choice reaction-time task" - See creatine at Amazon.com.
• Low vitamin D status associated with cognitive decline: Study - Nutra USA, 12/2/10 - "A total of 5,596 women, not taking vitamin D supplements were divided into 2 groups according to their baseline weekly staus: either inadequate (less than 35 micrograms per week) or recommended (more than 35 micrograms per week) ... Compared to women with recommended weekly vitamin D dietary intakes, women with inadequate intakes were reported to have lower scores on the SPMSQ mental state questionnaire" - [Abstract] - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• The effect of phosphatidylserine-containing omega-3 fatty acids on memory abilities in subjects with subjective memory complaints: a pilot study - Clin Interv Aging. 2010 Nov 2;5:313-6 - "PS-omega-3 supplementation resulted in 42% increase in the ability to recall words in the delayed condition" - See phosphatidylserine at Amazon.com and Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Vitamin D, neurocognitive functioning and immunocompetence - Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2010 Nov 23 - "The skeletal muscle and brain have a vitamin D receptor and the central nervous system has a capacity to activate vitamin D. Low vitamin D status has been linked to poor performance in neurocognitive testing in elderly. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with muscle weakness, depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and a lower motor neuron-induced muscle atrophy ... Correcting vitamin D deficiency and preventing vitamin D deficiency in children and adults should be a high priority for healthcare professionals to reduce risk for a wide variety of neurological disorders. Children and adults should take at least 400 international unit IU and 2000 IU vitamin D/day, respectively, to prevent vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Vitamin D and Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly U.S. Population - J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2010 Nov 2 - "The multivariate adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of cognitive impairment in participants who were 25(OH)D insufficient (≥50 < 75 nmol/L), deficient (≥25 < 50 nmol/L), and severely deficient (<25 nmol/L) in comparison with those sufficient (≥75 nmol/L) were 0.9 (0.6-1.3), 1.4 (1.0-2.1), and 3.9 (1.5-10.4), respectively (p for linear trend = .02). Log-transformed levels of 25(OH)D were also significantly associated with the odds of cognitive impairment (p = .02). Conclusions: These findings suggest that vitamin D deficiency is associated with increased odds of cognitive impairment in the elderly U.S. population" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Dietary intake of vitamin D and cognition in older women: A large population-based study - Neurology. 2010 Nov 16;75(20):1810-6 - "Compared to women with recommended weekly vitamin D dietary intakes (n = 4,802; mean age 80.4 +/- 3.8 years), women with inadequate intakes (n = 794; mean age 81.0 +/- 3.8 years) had a lower mean SPMSQ score (p < 0.001) and more often had an SPMSQ score <8 (p = 0.002). We found an association between weekly vitamin D dietary intake and SPMSQ score (β = 0.002, p < 0.001). Inadequate weekly vitamin D dietary intakes were also associated with cognitive impairment (unadjusted odds ratio = 1.42 with p = 0.002; full adjusted odds ratio = 1.30 with p = 0.024)" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• DHA improves memory and cognitive function in older adults, study suggests - Science Daily, 11/8/10 - "DHA taken for six months improved memory and learning in healthy, older adults with mild memory complaints ... This study reinforces the principle that consumers will reap the most benefit from their DHA supplements -- and many supplements -- when they are taken over time and before a health concern is imminent" - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• B-complex vitamins may help slow progression of dementia - Science Daily, 10/27/10 - "Large doses of B-complex vitamins could reduce the rate of brain shrinkage by half in elderly people with memory problems and slow the progression of dementia ... patients who already exhibit signs of dementia and test positive for high levels of homocysteine are more likely to respond well to the large doses of B vitamins. Homocysteine is an amino acid in the blood, and high blood levels are linked to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer disease"
• Walk much? It may protect your memory down the road - Science Daily, 10/13/10 - "walking at least six miles per week may protect brain size and in turn, preserve memory in old age ... people who walked at least 72 blocks per week, or roughly six to nine miles, had greater gray matter volume than people who didn't walk as much, when measured at the nine-year time point after their recorded activity. Walking more than 72 blocks did not appear to increase gray matter volume any further ... those who walked the most cut their risk of developing memory problems in half"
• B vitamins slow brain atrophy in people with memory problems - Science Daily, 9/12/10 - "on average the brains of those taking the folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12 treatment shrank at a rate of 0.76% a year, while those in the placebo group had a mean brain shrinkage rate of 1.08%. People with the highest levels of homocysteine benefited most, showing atrophy rates on treatment that were half of those on placebo"
• Vitamin B is revolutionary new weapon against Alzheimer's Disease telegraph.co.uk, 9/9/10 - "Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) – a kind of memory loss and forgetfulness – and Alzheimer's ... On average, taking B vitamins slowed the rate of brain atrophy by 30 per cent, and in many cases reductions was as high as 53 per cent were seen"
• Eating berries may activate the brain's natural housekeeper for healthy aging - Science Daily, 8/23/10 - "berries, and possibly walnuts, activate the brain's natural "housekeeper" mechanism, which cleans up and recycles toxic proteins linked to age-related memory loss and other mental decline ... natural compounds called polyphenolics found in fruits, vegetables and nuts have an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect that may protect against age-associated decline"
• B vitamins and the aging brain examined - Science Daily, 8/17/10 - "An analysis of volunteers' blood samples showed that lower levels of one B vitamin, folate, were associated with symptoms of dementia and poor brain function, also called "cognitive decline," ... In women, but not men, low levels of folate were associated with symptoms of depression. In fact, female volunteers whose plasma folate levels were in the lowest third were more than twice as likely to have symptoms of depression as volunteers in the highest third ... In research with vitamin B-12, the SALSA team determined that a protein known as holoTC, short for holotranscobalamin, might be key to a new approach for detecting cognitive decline earlier and more accurately"
• Luteolin Inhibits Microglia and Alters Hippocampal-Dependent Spatial Working Memory in Aged Mice - J Nutr. 2010 Aug 4 - "Taken together, the current findings suggest dietary luteolin enhanced spatial working memory by mitigating microglial-associated inflammation in the hippocampus. Therefore, luteolin consumption may be beneficial in preventing or treating conditions involving increased microglial cell activity and inflammation" - See Jarrow Formulas, CarotenALL, Mixed Carotenoid Complex at Amazon.com.
• Vitamin D status and measures of cognitive function in healthy older European adults - Eur J Clin Nutr. 2010 Aug 11 - "Serum 25(OH)D was significantly and inversely correlated with four assessments within the spatial working memory (SWM) test parameter (SWM between errors (r=-0.166; P=0.003); SWM between errors 8 boxes (r=-0.134; P=0.038); SWM strategy (r=-0.246; P<0.0001); and SWM total errors (r=-0.174; P<0.003)). When subjects were stratified on the basis of tertiles (T) of serum 25(OH)D (<47.6 (T(1)); 47.6-85.8 (T(2)); and >85.8 (T(3)) nmol/l), fewer errors in SWM test scores occurred in subjects in the third T when compared with the first T (P<0.05-0.084). Stratification by sex showed that these differences between tertiles strengthened (P<0.001-0.043) in the females, but the differences were not significant (P>0.6) in males.Conclusions:Vitamin D insufficiency, but not deficiency, is widespread in the older population of several European countries. Low vitamin D status was associated with a reduced capacity for SWM, particularly in women" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Olive oil extract shows brain protecting benefits - Nutra USA, 8/3/10 - "the olive oil compound reduced the cell damaging effects of the oxidative and nitrosative stress in a dose-dependent manner, with higher doses providing increased protection" - [Abstract] - See olive leaf extract at Amazon.com.
• Cytoprotective effects of olive mill wastewater extract and its main constituent hydroxytyrosol in PC12 cells - Pharmacol Res. 2010 Jun 16 - "Following a short-term exposure (30min) to the compounds of interest, cells were subjected to oxidative or nitrosative stress by adding either ferrous iron or sodium nitroprusside to the cell culture medium for 18h, respectively. Cytotoxicity was assessed by measuring MTT reduction, cellular ATP levels and mitochondrial membrane potential in the absence and presence of HT or HT-rich olive mill wastewater extract. The results we obtained mainly confirm our previous observation of promising cytoprotection of brain cells by HT-rich olive mill wastewater extract in different stressor paradigms" - See olive leaf extract at Amazon.com.
• Memory's master switch: Molecular power behind memory discovered - Science Daily, 7/29/10 - "Higher concentrations of GABA near a synapse induced a stronger activation of its receptors, weakening basal synapse strength. As a result, GABA makes this synapse more liable to the formation of new memories" - See GABA at Amazon.com.
• Nutrient blend improves function of aging brain: rat study - Nutra USA, 7/21/10 - "NT-020 is a combination of blueberry, green tea extract, carnosine and vitamin D3 ... The NT-020 group demonstrated increased adult neural stem cell proliferation in the two main stem cell niches in the brains and improvement in learning and memory"
• Natural substance NT-020 aids aging brains in rats, study finds - Science Daily, 7/20/10 - "Aging has been linked to oxidative stress, and we have previously shown that natural compounds made from blueberries, green tea, and amino acids, such as carnosine, are high in antioxidants and have anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative activity .... The combination of these nutrients, called NT-020, creates a synergistic effect that promotes the proliferation of stem cells in the aged animals ... NT-020 may have not only a positive effect on the stem cell niche ... NT-020 may have far-reaching effects on organ function beyond the replacement of injured cells, as demonstrated by cognitive improvement in the NT-020 group"
• Vitamin d and risk of cognitive decline in elderly persons - Arch Intern Med. 2010 Jul 12;170(13):1135-41 - "The multivariate adjusted relative risk (95% confidence interval [CI]) of substantial cognitive decline on the MMSE in participants who were severely serum 25(OH)D deficient (levels <25 nmol/L) in comparison with those with sufficient levels of 25(OH)D (>/=75 nmol/L) was 1.60 (95% CI, 1.19-2.00). Multivariate adjusted random-effects models demonstrated that the scores of participants who were severely 25(OH)D deficient declined by an additional 0.3 MMSE points per year more than those with sufficient levels of 25(OH)D. The relative risk for substantial decline on Trail-Making Test B was 1.31 (95% CI, 1.03-1.51) among those who were severely 25(OH)D deficient compared with those with sufficient levels of 25(OH)D. No significant association was observed for Trail-Making Test A. CONCLUSION: Low levels of vitamin D were associated with substantial cognitive decline in the elderly population studied over a 6-year period, which raises important new possibilities for treatment and prevention" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Dietary Antioxidants and Long-term Risk of Dementia - Arch Neurol. 2010 Jul;67(7):819-25 - "Compared with participants in the lowest tertile of vitamin E intake, those in the highest tertile were 25% less likely to develop dementia (hazard ratio, 0.75" - See Jarrow FamilE (contains all eight members of the vitamin E family, includes Tocomin) at Amazon.com.
• Eating foods rich in vitamin E associated with lower dementia risk - Science Daily, 7/12/10 - "the one-third of individuals who consumed the most vitamin E (a median or midpoint of 18.5 milligrams per day) were 25 percent less likely to develop dementia than the one-third of participants who consumed the least (a median of 9 milligrams per day)" - See Jarrow FamilE (contains all eight members of the vitamin E family, includes Tocomin) at Amazon.com.
• Moderate Physical Activity Linked to Lower Dementia Risk - Medscape, 7/12/10 - "Compared with those with lower levels of activity, participants reporting moderate to heavy physical activity had a 45% lower risk for dementia over time"
• Regular Tea Consumption May Slow Cognitive Decline - Medscape, 7/12/10 - "Participants who drank tea 5 to 10 times per year, 1 to 3 times per month, 1 to 4 times per week, or 5 or more times per week had average annual rates of cognitive decline that were 17%, 32%, 37%, and 26% lower, respectively, than those of non-tea-drinkers" - See green tea extract at Amazon.com.
• Low vitamin D levels associated with cognitive decline - Science Daily, 7/12/10 - "An estimated 40 percent to 100 percent of older adults in the United States and Europe are deficient in vitamin D ... Participants who were severely deficient in vitamin D (having blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D of less than 25 nanomoles per liter) were 60 percent more likely to have substantial cognitive decline in general over the six-year period and 31 percent more likely to experience declines on the test measuring executive function than those with sufficient vitamin D levels" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Vitamin D and mental agility in elders - Science Daily, 6/25/10 - "The participants, ages 65 to 99 years, were grouped by their vitamin D status, which was categorized as deficient, insufficient, or sufficient. Only 35 percent had sufficient vitamin D blood levels. They had better cognitive performance on the tests than those in the deficient and insufficient categories, particularly on measures of "executive performance," such as cognitive flexibility, perceptual complexity, and reasoning. The associations persisted after taking into consideration other variables that could also affect cognitive performance" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Aerobic fitness and multidomain cognitive function in advanced age - Int Psychogeriatr. 2010 Jun 22:1-11 - "The moderately-fit group achieved significantly better scores on the global cognitive score (U = 97, p = 0.04), and a significant correlation was found between peak VO2 and attention, executive function, and global cognitive score (rs = .37, .39, .38 respectively). The trend for superior cognitive scores in the moderate-fitness compared to the low-fitness groups was unequivocal, both in terms of accuracy and reaction time.Conclusion: Maintenance of higher levels of cardiovascular fitness may help protect against cognitive deterioration, even at an advanced age"
• Phosphatidylserine Containing omega-3 Fatty Acids May Improve Memory Abilities in Non-Demented Elderly with Memory Complaints: A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial - Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2010 Jun 3;29(5):467-474 - "The results indicate that PS-DHA may improve cognitive performance in non-demented elderly with memory complaints. Post-hoc analysis of subgroups suggests that participants with higher baseline cognitive status were most likely to respond to PS-DHA" - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.comand phosphatidylserine products at iHerb.
• Improved cognitive-cerebral function in older adults with chromium supplementation - Nutr Neurosci. 2010 Jun;13(3):116-22 - "In a placebo-controlled, double-blind trial, we randomly assigned 26 older adults to receive either chromium picolinate (CrPic) or placebo for 12 weeks ... Although learning rate and retention were not enhanced by CrPic supplementation, we observed reduced semantic interference on learning, recall, and recognition memory tasks. In addition, fMRI indicated comparatively increased activation for the CrPic subjects in right thalamic, right temporal, right posterior parietal, and bifrontal regions. These findings suggest that supplementation with CrPic can enhance cognitive inhibitory control and cerebral function in older adults at risk for neurodegeneration" - See chromium supplements at Amazon.com.
• Regular aerobic exercise is good for the brain - Science Daily, 4/26/10 - "Regular exercise speeds learning and improves blood flow to the brain ... monkeys who exercised regularly at an intensity that would improve fitness in middle-aged people learned to do tests of cognitive function faster and had greater blood volume in the brain's motor cortex than their sedentary counterparts ... This suggests people who exercise are getting similar benefits ... When the researchers examined tissue samples from the brain's motor cortex, they found that mature monkeys that ran had greater vascular volume than middle-aged runners or sedentary animals. But those blood flow changes reversed in monkeys that were sedentary after exercising for five months"
• Low Vitamin D Level Tied to Cognitive Decline - WebMD, 4/16/10 - "Two new studies add to evidence that older people with low levels of vitamin D may be more likely to suffer from cognitive impairment. ... Results showed that the lower their score on the test, the lower their vitamin D levels" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Learning keeps brain healthy: Mental activity could stave off age-related cognitive and memory decline - Science Daily, 3/2/10
• DHA brain benefits may extend to middle age - Nutra USA, 3/1/10 - "Higher DHA was related to better performance on tests of nonverbal reasoning and mental flexibility, working memory, and vocabulary ... increasing levels of DHA were associated with improved mental function in a “generally linear" - [Abstract] - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• DHA May Prevent Age-Related Dementia - J Nutr. 2010 Feb 24 - "DHA is pleiotropic, acting at multiple steps to reduce the production of the beta-amyloid peptide, widely believed to initiate AD. DHA moderates some of the kinases that hyperphosphorylate the tau-protein, a component of the neurofibrillary tangle. DHA may help suppress insulin/neurotrophic factor signaling deficits, neuroinflammation, and oxidative damage that contribute to synaptic loss and neuronal dysfunction in dementia. Finally, DHA increases brain levels of neuroprotective brain-derived neurotrophic factor and reduces the (n-6) fatty acid arachidonate and its prostaglandin metabolites that have been implicated in promoting AD. Clinical trials suggest that DHA or fish oil alone can slow early stages of progression, but these effects may be apolipoprotein E genotype specific, and larger trials with very early stages are required to prove efficacy. We advocate early intervention in a prodromal period with nutrigenomically defined subjects with an appropriately designed nutritional supplement, including DHA and antioxidants" - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Serum Phospholipid Docosahexaenonic Acid Is Associated with Cognitive Functioning during Middle Adulthood - J Nutr. 2010 Feb 24 - "higher DHA (mol %) was related to better performance on tests of nonverbal reasoning and mental flexibility, working memory, and vocabulary (P </= 0.05). These associations were generally linear. Associations between DHA and nonverbal reasoning and working memory persisted with additional adjustment for participant education and vocabulary scores ... Among the 3 key (n-3) PUFA, only DHA is associated with major aspects of cognitive performance in nonpatient adults <55 y old. These findings suggest that DHA is related to brain health throughout the lifespan and may have implications for clinical trials of neuropsychiatric disorders" - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• The Ginkgo biloba extract EGb 761((R)) and its main constituent flavonoids and ginkgolides increase extracellular dopamine levels in the rat prefrontal cortex - Br J Pharmacol. 2010 Jan 25 - "A single oral dose of EGb 761 (100 mg.kg(-1)) had no effect on monoamine levels. However, following chronic (100 mg.kg(-1)/14 days/once daily) treatment, the same dose significantly increased extracellular dopamine and noradrenaline levels, while 5-HT levels were unaffected. Chronic treatment with EGb 761 showed dose-dependent increases in frontocortical dopamine levels and, to a lesser extent, in the striatum. The extracellular levels of HVA and DOPAC were not affected by either acute or repeated doses. Treatment with the main constituents of EGb 761 revealed that the increase in dopamine levels was mostly caused by the flavonol glycosides and ginkgolide fractions, whereas bilobalide treatment was without effect. Conclusions and implications: The present results demonstrate that chronic but not acute treatment with EGb 761 increased dopaminergic transmission in the PFC. This finding may be one of the mechanisms underlying the reported effects of G. biloba in improving cognitive function" - See Ginkgo biloba at Amazon.com.
• A mind at rest strengthens memories, researchers find - Science Daily, 1/27/10
• Magnesium May Improve Memory - WebMD, 1/27/10 - "increasing brain magnesium using a newly developed compound, magnesium-L-threonate (MgT), improves learning abilities, working memory, and short- and-long-term memory in rats. The magnesium also helped older rats perform better on a battery of learning tests ... The researchers cite that only 32% of Americans get the recommended daily allowance of magnesium" - See Jarrow Formulas, Magnesium Optimizer Citrate at Amazon.com.
• Coffee Break Boosts Memory - WebMD, 1/27/10 - "Taking a coffee break after class can actually help you retain that information you just learned"
• Blueberry juice improves memory in older adults - Science Daily, 1/20/10 - "In the study, one group of volunteers in their 70s with early memory decline drank the equivalent of 2-2 l/2 cups of a commercially available blueberry juice every day for two months. A control group drank a beverage without blueberry juice. The blueberry juice group showed significant improvement on learning and memory tests" - See blueberry extract at Amazon.com.
• Running Boosts Brainpower - WebMD, 1/19/10 - "Running may do more than improve your cardiovascular fitness and overall physique. It might actually make you smarter ... Scientists reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences say that running has a profound impact on the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory"
• Association of vitamin D deficiency with cognitive impairment in older women: cross-sectional study - Neurology. 2010 Jan 5;74(1):27-32 - "Cognitive impairment was defined as a Pfeiffer Short Portable Mental State Questionnaire (SPMSQ) score <8 ... Compared with women with serum 25(OH)D concentrations > or =10 ng/mL (n = 623), the women with 25(OH)D deficiency (n = 129) had a lower mean SPMSQ score (p < 0.001) and more often had an SPMSQ score <8 (p = 0.006). There was no significant linear association between serum 25(OH)D concentration and SPMSQ score (beta = -0.003, 95% confidence interval -0.012 to 0.006, p = 0.512). However, serum 25(OH)D deficiency was associated with cognitive impairment (crude odds ratio [OR] = 2.08 with p = 0.007; adjusted OR = 1.99 with p = 0.017 for full model; and adjusted OR = 2.03 with p = 0.012 for stepwise backward model). CONCLUSIONS: 25-Hydroxyvitamin D deficiency was associated with cognitive impairment in this cohort of community-dwelling older women" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Blueberry Supplementation Improves Memory in Older Adults (dagger) - J Agric Food Chem. 2010 Jan 4 - "Blueberries contain polyphenolic compounds, most prominently anthocyanins, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. In addition, anthocyanins have been associated with increased neuronal signaling in brain centers, mediating memory function as well as improved glucose disposal, benefits that would be expected to mitigate neurodegeneration ... At 12 weeks, improved paired associate learning (p = 0.009) and word list recall (p = 0.04) were observed. In addition, there were trends suggesting reduced depressive symptoms (p = 0.08) and lower glucose levels (p = 0.10). We also compared the memory performances of the blueberry subjects with a demographically matched sample who consumed a berry placebo beverage in a companion trial of identical design and observed comparable results for paired associate learning. The findings of this preliminary study suggest that moderate-term blueberry supplementation can confer neurocognitive benefit and establish a basis for more comprehensive human trials to study preventive potential and neuronal mechanisms" - See blueberry extract at Amazon.com.
• Young adults who exercise get higher IQ Scores - Science Daily, 12/2/09 - "The study shows a clear link between good physical fitness and better results for the IQ test. The strongest links are for logical thinking and verbal comprehension ... Being fit means that you also have good heart and lung capacity and that your brain gets plenty of oxygen ... This may be one of the reasons why we can see a clear link with fitness, but not with muscular strength. We are also seeing that there are growth factors that are important"
• Cardiovascular Fitness May Sharpen Mind - WebMD, 11/30/09 - "A large new study links cardiovascular fitness in early adulthood to increased intelligence, better performance on cognitive tests, and higher educational achievement later in life ... When researchers looked at twins, they found that environmental factors rather than genetics appeared to play the largest role in these associations. Non-shared environmental influences accounted for 80% or more of differences in academic achievement, whereas genetics accounted for less than 15% of these differences"
• 25-Hydroxyvitamin D, dementia, and cerebrovascular pathology in elders receiving home services - Neurology. 2009 Nov 25 - "Vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency was associated with all-cause dementia, Alzheimer disease, stroke (with and without dementia symptoms), and MRI indicators of cerebrovascular disease. These findings suggest a potential vasculoprotective role of vitamin D" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Olive Oil and Cognition: Results from the Three-City Study - Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2009 Oct 30;28(4):357-36 - "Participants with moderate or intensive use of olive oil compared to those who never used olive oil showed lower odds of cognitive deficit for verbal fluency and visual memory. For cognitive decline during the 4-year follow-up, the association with intensive use was significant for visual memory (adjusted OR = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.69-0.99) but not for verbal fluency (OR = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.70-1.03) in multivariate analysis" - See olive leaf extract at Amazon.com.
• Olive oil component could avert Alzheimer’s - Nutra USA, 10/20/09 - "ADDLs bind within the neural synapses of the brains of Alzheimer's patients and are believed to directly disrupt nerve cell function, eventually leading to memory loss, cell death and global disruption of brain function ... incubation with oleocanthal changed the structure of ADDLs by increasing the protein's size" - [Abstract] - See olive leaf extract at Amazon.com.
• Alzheimer's-associated Abeta oligomers show altered structure, immunoreactivity and synaptotoxicity with low doses of oleocanthal - Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2009 Oct 15;240(2):189-97 - "results indicate oleocanthal is capable of altering the oligomerization state of ADDLs while protecting neurons from the synaptopathological effects of ADDLs and suggest OC as a lead compound for development in AD therapeutics" - See olive leaf extract at Amazon.com.
• Antioxidant OPCs may boost memory: Animal study - Nutra USA, 10/16/09 - "The results showed that OPC-consuming animals had “improved spatial and object recognition impairment”" - [Abstract] - See grape seed extract at Amazon.com.
• Oligomeric proanthocyanidins improve memory and enhance phosphorylation of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 in senescence-accelerated mouse prone/8 - Br J Nutr. 2009 Oct 13:1-11 - "This indicates that oligomers result in an increase in the densities of axons, dendrites and synapses. To investigate the protective mechanisms of oligomers against brain dysfunction with ageing, we carried out a receptor tyrosine kinase phosphorylation antibody array, and clarified that the administration of oligomers led to an increase in the phosphorylation of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR)-2, suggesting the neuroprotective role of oligomers. The phosphorylation of VEGFR-2 was more greatly increased in the hypothalamus and choroid plexus than in other brain regions of SAMP8. Memory in oligomer-treated mice was impaired by SU1498, a VEGFR-2-specific antagonist. Elucidating the relationship between memory impairment with ageing and VEGFR-2 signalling may provide new suggestions for protection against memory deficit in the ageing brain" - See grape seed extract at Amazon.com.
• High-Carb, High-Fat Diets Better for Cognitive Performance - Medscape, 9/1/09 - "Diets high in carbohydrates or fat can lead to significantly better cognitive-performance and inflight-testing scores in pilots than diets high in protein"
• 'Brain Exercises' May Delay Memory Decline In Dementia - Science Daily, 8/4/09 - "People who engage in activities that exercise the brain, such as reading, writing, and playing card games, may delay the rapid memory decline that occurs if they later develop dementia"
• Antioxidant effect of lutein towards phospholipid hydroperoxidation in human erythrocytes - Br J Nutr. 2009 Jul 22:1-5 - "These results suggest that lutein has the potential to act as an important antioxidant molecule in erythrocytes, and it thereby may contribute to the prevention of dementia" - See lutein at Amazon.com.
• Exercise Cuts Decline in Mental Skills - WebMD, 7/13/09 - "sedentary older people who began new exercise programs curbed their rate of cognitive decline, especially when it came to the ability to process complex information quickly ... people who were consistently sedentary had the worst mental skills. On a standard test that measures overall cognitive function, including memory, attention span and problem-solving, "they scored the worst at the beginning and experienced the fastest rate of cognitive decline,""
• DHA Appears Beneficial for Patients Diagnosed With Mild Cognitive Impairment - Doctor's Guide, 7/13/09 - "Algal DHA appears to have a significant impact on early episodic memory changes and its benefits are roughly equivalent to having the learning and memory skills of someone 3 years younger" - [WebMD] - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Soy may help men remember anniversaries: Study - Nutra USA, 7/9/09 - "men receiving the isoflavones required 18 per cent fewer attempts to correctly complete the tasks, committed 23 per cent fewer errors, and achieved the tasks in 17 per cent less time than they did during the placebo phase" - [Abstract] - See soy isoflavones at Amazon.com.
• Soya isoflavone supplementation enhances spatial working memory in men - Br J Nutr. 2009 Jun 1:1-7 - "Compared with placebo supplementation, there were 18 % fewer attempts (P = 0.01), 23 % fewer errors (P = 0.02) and 17 % less time (P = 0.03) required to correctly identify the requisite information" - See soy isoflavones at Amazon.com.
• Oily fish may reduce dementia risk: Transcontinental study - Nutra USA, 7/8/09 - "Almost 15,000 people aged 65 or over were surveyed. After adjusting for various confounders and pooling the data from all the sites, the researchers report that they observed a dose-dependent inverse association between dementia and fish consumption" - [Abstract] - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Dietary fish and meat intake and dementia in Latin America, China, and India: a 10/66 Dementia Research Group population-based study - Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Jun 24 - "We found a dose-dependent inverse association between fish consumption and dementia (PR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.72, 0.91) that was consistent across all sites except India and a less-consistent, dose-dependent, direct association between meat consumption and prevalence of dementia (PR: 1.19; 95% CI: 1.07, 1.31)" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Caffeine Reverses Memory Impairment In Mice With Alzheimer's Symptoms - Science Daily, 7/6/09 - "Coffee drinkers may have another reason to pour that extra cup. When aged mice bred to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's disease were given caffeine – the equivalent of five cups of coffee a day – their memory impairment was reversed"
• Aerobic Activity May Keep The Brain Young - Science Daily, 6/29/09 - "The brain’s blood vessels naturally narrow and become more tortuous with advancing age, but the study showed the cerebrovascular patterns of active patients appeared “younger” than those of relatively inactive subjects. The brains of these less active patients had increased tortuosity produced by vessel elongation and wider expansion curves"
• Silibinin prevents amyloid beta peptide-induced memory impairment and oxidative stress in mice - Br J Pharmacol. 2009 Jun 22 - "Silibinin (silybin), a flavonoid derived from the herb milk thistle (Silybum marianum), has been shown to have antioxidative properties; however, it remains unclear whether silibinin improves Abeta-induced neurotoxicity ... Silibinin prevented the memory impairment induced by Abeta(25-35) in the Y-maze and novel object recognition tests. Repeated treatment with silibinin attenuated the Abeta(25-35)-induced accumulation of malondialdehyde and depletion of glutathione in the hippocampus ... Silibinin prevents memory impairment and oxidative damage induced by Abeta(25-35) and may be a potential therapeutic agent for Alzheimer's disease" - See silymarin at Amazon.com.
• Alcohol consumption as a risk factor for dementia and cognitive decline: meta-analysis of prospective studies - Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2009 Jul;17(7):542-55 - "Alzheimer disease (AD) ... vascular dementia (VaD) ... The pooled relative risks (RRs) of AD, VaD, and Any dementia for light to moderate drinkers compared with nondrinkers were 0.72 (95% CI = 0.61-0.86), 0.75 (95% CI = 0.57-0.98), and 0.74 (95% CI = 0.61-0.91), respectively. When the more generally classified "drinkers," were compared with "nondrinkers," they had a reduced risk of AD (RR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.47-0.94) and Any dementia (RR = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.53-0.82) but not cognitive decline. There were not enough data to examine VaD risk among "drinkers." Those classified as heavy drinkers did not have an increased risk of Any dementia compared with nondrinkers, but this may reflect sampling bias. Our results suggest that alcohol drinkers in late life have reduced risk of dementia. It is unclear whether this reflects selection effects in cohort studies commencing in late life, a protective effect of alcohol consumption throughout adulthood, or a specific benefit of alcohol in late life"
• Statins Can Protect Against Alzheimer’s Disease, According To New Study - Science Daily, 6/22/09 - "They clearly demonstrated that treatment with a statin called Lovastatin could prevent the death of nerve cells under these conditions. The statins not only prevented cells from dying but also prevented the loss of memory capacity that normally occurs after such cell death. In a previous study Dolga had showed that these statins stimulate the protective capacity of tumor necrosis factor, which is a key player in the brain’s immune response" - [Abstract] - Note:  Lovastatin is in red yeast rice.  See red yeast rice at Amazon.com.
• Pretreatment with Lovastatin Prevents N-Methyl-D-Aspartate-Induced Neurodegeneration in the Magnocellular Nucleus Basalis and Behavioral Dysfunction - J Alzheimers Dis. 2009 Mar 6 - "From these studies we conclude that treatment with lovastatin may provide protection against neuronal injury in excitotoxic conditions associated with neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease" - Note:  Lovastatin (that's the generic name and therefore shouldn't be capitalized) is in red yeast rice.  See red yeast rice at Amazon.com.
• How to Stay Sharp in Old Age - WebMD, 6/9/09 - "People who exercised moderately to vigorously at least once a week were 31% more likely to maintain their cognitive function. People with at least a high school education were nearly three times as likely to stay sharp. Nonsmokers were nearly twice as likely to keep their mental edge"
• Soya isoflavone supplementation enhances spatial working memory in men - Br J Nutr. 2009 Jun 1:1-7 - "Volunteers were randomised to take four capsules/d containing soya isoflavones (116 mg isoflavone equivalents/d: 68 mg daidzein, 12 mg genistein, 36 mg glycitin) or placebo for 6 weeks, and the alternate treatment during the following 6 weeks. Assessments of memory (verbal episodic, auditory and working), executive function (planning, attention, mental flexibility) and visual-spatial processing were performed at baseline and after each treatment period. Isoflavone supplementation significantly improved spatial working memory (P = 0.01), a test in which females consistently perform better than males. Compared with placebo supplementation, there were 18 % fewer attempts (P = 0.01), 23 % fewer errors (P = 0.02) and 17 % less time (P = 0.03) required to correctly identify the requisite information. Isoflavones did not affect auditory and episodic memory (Paired Associate Learning, Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Task, Backward Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing), executive function (Trail Making and Initial Letter Fluency Task) or visual-spatial processing (Mental Rotation Task). Isoflavone supplementation in healthy males may enhance cognitive processes which appear dependent on oestrogen activation"
• Is Vitamin D Deficiency Linked To Alzheimer's Disease And Vascular Dementia? - Science Daily, 5/26/09 - "Several studies have correlated tooth loss with development of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia. There are two primary ways that people lose teeth: dental caries and periodontal disease. Both conditions are linked to low vitamin D levels, with induction of human cathelicidin by 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D being the mechanism ... There is also laboratory evidence for the role of vitamin D in neuroprotection and reducing inflammation, and ample biological evidence to suggest an important role for vitamin D in brain development and function ... those over the age of 60 years should consider having their serum 25(OH)D tested, looking for a level of at least 30 ng/mL but preferably over 40 ng/mL, and supplementing with 1000-2000 IU/day of vitamin D3 or increased time in the sun spring, summer, and fall if below those values" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Vitamin D for Quicker Thinking? - WebMD, 5/21/09 - "Men in their 60s and 70s with low levels of vitamin D were the most likely participants to have low scores on the visual scanning and processing test" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Folate Deficiency May Triple Dementia Risk in the Elderly - Medscape, 3/3/09 - "individuals who were folate deficient at study outset were 3.5 times more likely to develop dementia" - See folic acid products at Amazon.com.
• Role of Huperzine A in the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease - Ann Pharmacother. 2009 Feb 24 - "AD is a progressive neurodegenerative brain disorder for which there is no cure; available therapies only decrease cognitive decline. Huperzine A, an alkaloid derived from Chinese club moss (H. serrata), acts as a selective inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase and may also display neuroprotective properties. Preliminary data suggest that huperzine A may improve cognition; studies ranging from 8 to 12 weeks have found improvements in the Mini-Mental State Examination score of 1-5 points ... Although use of huperzine A has shown promising results in patients with AD, data supporting its use are limited by weak study design" - See huperzine at Amazon.com.
• Mediterranean Diet May Preserve Memory - WebMD, 2/9/09 - "The Mediterranean diet consists of larger doses of fish, vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals, and unsaturated fatty acids; low amounts of dairy products, meat, and saturated fats; and a moderate amount of alcohol ... average 4.5 year follow-up period. Those in the top one-third of Mediterranean diet scores had a 28% lower risk (compared to those in the bottom third) of developing a cognitive impairment"
• Coffee lovers face lower dementia risk - MSNBC, 2/3/09 - "among 1,400 Finnish adults followed for 20 years, those who drank three to five cups of coffee per day in middle-age were two-thirds less likely than non-drinkers to develop dementia, including Alzheimer's disease"
• Low Levels Of Vitamin D Link To Cognitive Problems In Older People - Science Daily, 1/22/09 - "Researchers from the Peninsula Medical School, the University of Cambridge and the University of Michigan, have for the first time identified a relationship between Vitamin D, the "sunshine vitamin", and cognitive impairment in a large-scale study of older people ... as levels of Vitamin D went down, levels of cognitive impairment went up. Compared to those with optimum levels of Vitamin D, those with the lowest levels were more than twice as likely to be cognitively impaired" - See vitamin D at Amazon.com.
• Midlife Coffee And Tea Drinking May Protect Against Late-life Dementia - Science Daily, 1/14/09 - "coffee drinkers at midlife had lower risk for dementia and AD later in life compared to those drinking no or only little coffee. The lowest risk (65% decreased) was found among moderate coffee drinkers (drinking 3-5 cups of coffee/day). Adjustments for various confounders did not change the results. Tea drinking was relatively uncommon and was not associated with dementia/AD"
• Neuroprotective Effects of (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate on Aging Mice Induced by D-Galactose - Biol Pharm Bull. 2009 Jan;32(1):55-60 - "aim of the present study was to investigate the protective effects of (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), the main polyphenolic constituent of green tea ... Oral administration of EGCG (2 mg/kg or 6 mg/kg) for 4 weeks significantly improved the cognitive deficits in mice and elevated T-SOD and GSH-Px activities, decreased MDA contents in the hippocampus, and reduced the cell apoptosis index and expression of cleaved caspase-3 in the mouse hippocampus. The results suggest that EGCG has potent neuroprotective effects on aging mice induced by D-gal through antioxidative and antiapoptotic mechanisms, indicating that EGCG is worthy of further study in aging" - See green tea extract at Amazon.com.
• Blood Sugar Linked To Normal Cognitive Aging - Science Daily, 12/30/08 - "Beyond the obvious conclusion that preventing late-life disease would benefit the aging hippocampus, our findings suggest that maintaining blood sugar levels, even in the absence of diabetes, could help maintain aspects of cognitive health. More specifically, our findings predict that any intervention that causes a decrease in blood glucose should increase dentate gyrus function and would therefore be cognitively beneficial" - [WebMD]
• Berry Compound Reduces Aging Effect - Science Daily, 12/28/08 - "in aging rats, pterostilbene was effective in reversing cognitive decline and that improved working memory was linked to pterostilbene levels in the hippocampus region of the brain"
• Exercise Increases Brain Growth Factor And Receptors, Prevents Stem Cell Drop In Middle Age - Science Daily, 11/27/08 - "exercise significantly slows down the loss of new nerve cells in the middle-aged mice. They found that production of neural stem cells improved by approximately 200% compared to the middle-aged mice that did not exercise. In addition, the survival of new nerve cells increased by 170% and growth by 190% compared to the sedentary middle-aged mice. Exercise also significantly enhanced stem cell production and maturation in the young mice. In fact, exercise produced a stronger effect in younger mice compared to the older mice"
• Ginkgo biloba has no benefits against dementia: Study - Nutra USA, 11/19/08 - "The GEM Study involved 3,069 community volunteers with an average age of 79.1 ... Commenting on the study, Dr Fabricant said the study had two major limitations: “One, it looks exclusively at people almost 80 years old who are far more likely to have Alzheimer’s, while ignoring those in middle ages, where the risk for developing the disease rises quickly and prevention could best be analyzed,” ... Two, it excludes completely any consideration of the strong and established role that family history plays with Alzheimer’s. You can’t do a study on the weather without looking at wind and rain.”"
• Physical Exercise Keeps Brain Young - WebMD, 11/19/08 - "The brain-boosting effects of exercise diminish rapidly after early middle age ... mice that worked out every day grew 2.5 times more new brain cells than couch potato mice. And in the exercising mice, far more of these new neurons survived, grew, and integrated into existing brain networks"
• Surfing the Web Stimulates Older Brains - WebMD, 10/14/08 - "Middle-aged to older adults who know their way around the Internet had more stimulation of decision-making and complex reasoning areas of the brain than peers who were new to web surfing ... reading didn’t stimulate the same number of brain areas as Internet searching"
• Raised homocysteine and low folate and vitamin B-12 concentrations predict cognitive decline in community-dwelling older Japanese adults - Clin Nutr. 2008 Oct 1 - "Reduced folate and vitamin B-12 concentrations were independently associated with cognitive decline"
• Low plasma eicosapentaenoic acid and depressive symptomatology are independent predictors of dementia risk - Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Sep;88(3):714-21 - "A high plasma EPA concentration may decrease the risk of dementia, whereas high ratios of n-6 to n-3 fatty acids and of AA to DHA may increase the risk of dementia, especially in depressed older persons. The role of EPA in dementia warrants further research" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Aging - Lack of B12 Linked to Brain Shrinkage - New York Times, 9/8/08 - "The group with the lowest levels of vitamin B12 lost twice as much brain volume as those with the highest levels" - See vitamin B12 at Amazon.com.
• Vitamin B12 Boasts Brain Benefits - WebMD, 9/8/08 - "None of the people in the study had a vitamin B12 deficiency ... When the researchers compared the results, they found that people who had higher vitamin B12 levels were six times less likely to experience brain shrinkage compared with those who had lower levels of the vitamin in their blood"
• Walking Boosts Brainpower - WebMD, 9/2/08 - "Those in the exercise group scored higher on cognitive tests and had better delayed recall. For example, they could more accurately remember a list of words after a certain amount of time had passed than those in the other group ... Unlike medication, which was found to have no significant effect on mild cognitive impairment at 36 months, physical activity has the advantage of health benefits that are not confined to cognitive function alone, as suggested by findings on depression, quality of life, falls, cardiovascular function, and disability"
• B-vitamin Deficiency May Cause Vascular Cognitive Impairment - Science Daily, 9/2/08 - "Mice fed a diet deficient in folate and vitamins B12 and B6 demonstrated significant deficits in spatial learning and memory compared with normal mice"
• Caffeine Reduces Cognitive Decline in Women - Medscape, 8/9/08 - "French researchers report that women who drank more than 3 cups of coffee per day had less decline during 4 years of follow-up compared with those who drank a cup or less. However, no such effect was seen in men ... Risk for Decline on Cognitive Endpoints at 4 Years for Women Drinking More Than 3 Cups of Coffee Per Day at Baseline vs 1 or More Cups ... Verbal Retrieval ... 0.67 ... Visuospatial Memory ... 0.82"
• Tea Drinking May Help Protect Against Cognitive Impairment and Decline - Medscape, 7/14/08 - "Independent of other risk factors, total tea intake was significantly associated with a lower prevalence of cognitive impairment, defined as an MMSE score of 23 or less. Compared with ORs for rare or no tea intake, ORs for low, medium, and high levels of tea intake were 0.56 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.40 - 0.78), 0.45 (95% CI, 0.27 - 0.72), and 0.37 (95% CI, 0.14 - 0.98), respectively"
• Nutrient cocktail may boost memory and learning: study - Nutra USA, 7/10/08 - "It may be possible to use this [combination] to partially restore brain function in people with diseases that decrease the number of brain neurons, including, for example, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, strokes and brain injuries. Of course, such speculations have to be tested in double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials ... supplemented the diets of gerbils with uridine (in its monophosphate form, 0.5 per cent) and choline (0.1 per cent), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 300 mg/kg/day) for four weeks ... At the end of the study, significant increases in phospholipid levels in the brain were observed when the compounds were given together, while administration of only DHA or UMP or UMP plus choline produced smaller increases" - [Abstract] - See citicholine at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Dietary uridine enhances the improvement in learning and memory produced by administering DHA to gerbils - FASEB J. 2008 Jul 7 - "These findings demonstrate that a treatment that increases synaptic membrane content can enhance cognitive functions in normal animals" - See citicholine at Amazon.com and Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Low Levels Of Good Cholesterol Linked To Memory Loss, Dementia Risk - Science Daily, 6/30/08 - "Researchers defined low HDL as less than 40 mg/dL ... At age 60, participants with low HDL had a 53 percent increased risk of memory loss compared to the high HDL group" - [WebMD] - The best way to increase HDL is niacin.  See niacin at Amazon.com.  Start slow maybe even with the 100 mg capsules.  It took me about three months to get immune to the flush from 2000 mg per day.  Taking it with soup seems to be the best.
• Exercise May Cut Risk of Dementia - WebMD, 6/3/08 - "In a study of more than 1,400 adults, those who were physically active in their free time during middle age were 52% less likely to develop dementia 21 years later than their sedentary counterparts. Their chance of developing Alzheimer's disease was slashed even more, by 62%"
• Active Social Life May Delay Memory Loss Among US Elderly Population - Science Daily, 5/29/08 - "individuals with the highest social integration had the slowest rate of memory decline from 1998 to 2004. In fact, memory decline among the most integrated was less than half the rate among the least integrated. These findings were independent of sociodemographic factors (such as age, gender, and race) and health status in 1998. The researchers found that the protective effect of social integration was largest among individuals with fewer than 12 years of education"
• Study supports Pycnogenol for better memory in elderly - Nutra USA, 3/18/08 - "150mg of Pycnogenol ... three months, the participants receiving Pycnogenol had "significantly improved" memory, as seen in a factor that combined accuracy scored from spatial working memory and numeric working memory tasks" - See Pycnogenol at Amazon.com.
• DHEAS Levels Linked to Cognitive Function in Women - Medscape, 3/13/07 - "There are data that suggest that DHEA and DHEAS may have neuroprotective effects and that the decline in the production of these steroids with healthy aging may contribute to neuronal dysfunction and degeneration, and thus cognitive decline ... women with higher circulating levels of DHEAS performed better on executive function tests. A positive association was also observed between circulating DHEAS and higher scores on tests of simple concentration and working memory in women with more than 12 years of education" - See DHEA at Amazon.com.
• Gingko may boost memory - if you remember to take it - Nutra USA, 2/28/08 - "The new study involved 118 people age 85 and older with no memory problems. The elderly subjects were randomly assigned to receive either a ginkgo biloba extract (240 mg daily, provided by Thorne Research) or placebo for three years. The extracts were independently verified to contain at least six per cent terpene lactones and 24 per cent flavone glycosides ... when the researchers considered only people who followed the directions in taking the study pills, they found that people took at least 84 per cent of the supplements as directed had a 68 per cent lower risk of developing mild memory problems" - See Ginkgo biloba at Amazon.com.
• A randomized placebo-controlled trial of ginkgo biloba for the prevention of cognitive decline - Neurology. 2008 Feb 27 - "In the secondary analysis, where we controlled the medication adherence level, the GBE group had a lower risk of progression from CDR = 0 to CDR = 0.5 (HR = 0.33, p = 0.02), and a smaller decline in memory scores" - See Ginkgo biloba at Amazon.com.
• Folate Deficiency Associated With Tripling Of Dementia Risk, Study Shows - Science Daily, 2/5/08 - "Folate deficiency is associated with a tripling in the risk of developing dementia among elderly people" - See iHerb folic acid products.
• n-3 Fatty acids, hypertension and risk of cognitive decline among older adults in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study - Public Health Nutr. 2008 Jan;11(1):17-29 - "Word Fluency Test (WFT) ... an increase of one standard deviation in dietary long-chain n-3 fatty acids (% of energy intake) and balancing long-chain n-3/n-6 decreased the risk of 6-year cognitive decline in verbal fluency with an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.79 (0.66-0.95) and 0.81 (0.68-0.96), respectively, among hypertensives. An interaction with hypertensive status was found for dietary long-chain n-3 fatty acids (g day-1) and WFT decline (likelihood ratio test, P = 0.06). This exposure in plasma cholesteryl esters was also protective against WFT decline, particularly among hypertensives (OR = 0.51" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com.
• Moderate Exercise May Cut Dementia Risk - WebMD,12/19/07- "Moderate physical activity (such as walking and climbing stairs) may help prevent dementia in people aged 65 and older"
• Dietary intake adequacy and cognitive function in free-living active elderly: A cross-sectional and short-term prospective study - Clin Nutr. 2007 Dec 12 - "mini-mental state examination (MMSE) ... subjects whose consumption of calcium was above the dietary reference intake had a significantly higher odds ratio (OR) of improving their MMSE (OR=5.41; 95% CI: 1.44-20.29)" - See calcium products at Amazon.com.
• DHEA sulfate levels are associated with more favorable cognitive function in women - J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2007 Dec 11 - "In the multiple linear regression analysis the DHEAS term made a significant independent positive contribution to the Controlled Oral Word Association Test score, a measure of executive function. In addition, women with a DHEAS level in the highest tertile who also had more than 12 years of education performed better on both Digit Span Forward and Digit Span Backward tests which are tests of simple concentration and working memory respectively" - See DHEA at Amazon.com.
• Increased B12 levels could ward off dementia - Nutra USA, 11/16/07 - "The longitudinal cohort study followed 1648 participants for 10 years, and found a doubling in holotranscobalamin (holoTC) concentrations was associated with a 30 per cent slower rate of cognitive decline ... increased levels of the amino acid homocysteine doubled the risk of dementia or cognitive impairment" - [Abstract] - See vitamin B12 at Amazon.com.
• Fish for brain health supported by trio of studies - Nutra USA, 11/14/07 - "These recent reports are novel in that they address the association of n-3 fatty acid intake and cognitive function in non-demented individuals and, thus, present a shift in the attention to earlier stages of cognitive decline with the hope of preventing progression to states of dementia and disability before they become irreversible" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com.
• Eating Fish, Omega-3 Oils, Fruits And Veggies Lowers Risk Of Memory Problems - Science Daily, 11/13/07 - "people who regularly consumed omega-3 rich oils, such as canola oil, flaxseed oil and walnut oil, reduced their risk of dementia by 60 percent compared to people who did not regularly consume such oils. People who ate fruits and vegetables daily also reduced their risk of dementia by 30 percent compared to those who didn't regularly eat fruits and vegetables ... people who ate fish at least once a week had a 35-percent lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and 40-percent lower risk of dementia, but only if they did not carry the gene that increases the risk of Alzheimer's, called apolipoprotein E4, or ApoE4 ... Given that most people do not carry the ApoE4 gene, these results could have considerable implications in terms of public health" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com.
• The role of folate in depression and dementia - J Clin Psychiatry. 2007;68 Suppl 10:28-33 - "folate deficiencies may be caused by improper absorption and utilization, often due to genetic polymorphisms. Individuals, therefore, can have insufficient levels or lack needed forms of folate, despite adequate intake. Supplementation with the active form of folate, methyltetrahydrofolate, which is more readily absorbed, may be effective in the prevention and treatment of both depression and dementia" - See folic acid at Amazon.com.
• Low vitamin B-12 status and risk of cognitive decline in older adults - Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Nov;86(5):1384-91 - "Low vitamin B-12 status was associated with more rapid cognitive decline" - See vitamin B12 at Amazon.com.
• Cognitive performance among the elderly and dietary fish intake: the Hordaland Health Study - Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Nov;86(5):1470-8 - "In the elderly, a diet high in fish and fish products is associated with better cognitive performance in a dose-dependent manner" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com.
• n 3 Fatty acid proportions in plasma and cognitive performance in older adults - Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Nov;86(5):1479-85 - "In this population, plasma n-3 PUFA proportions were associated with less decline in the speed-related cognitive domains over 3 y" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com.
• Diet Linked To Cognitive Decline And Dementia - WebMD, 11/6/07 - "An article published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences highlights information on the benefits of diets high in fruit, vegetables, cereals and fish and low in saturated fats in reducing dementia risk"
• Diet Of Walnuts, Blueberries Improve Cognition; May Help Maintain Brain Function - Science Daily, 11/6/07 - "Diets containing two percent, six percent, or nine percent walnuts, when given to old rats, were found to reverse several parameters of brain aging, as well as age-related motor and cognitive deficits"
• The role of folate in depression and dementia - J Clin Psychiatry. 2007;68 Suppl 10:28-33 - "folate deficiencies may be caused by improper absorption and utilization, often due to genetic polymorphisms. Individuals, therefore, can have insufficient levels or lack needed forms of folate, despite adequate intake. Supplementation with the active form of folate, methyltetrahydrofolate, which is more readily absorbed, may be effective in the prevention and treatment of both depression and dementia" - folic acid at Amazon.com.
• n-3 Fatty acids, hypertension and risk of cognitive decline among older adults in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study - Public Health Nutr. 2007 Jul 12;:1-13 - "Word Fluency Test (WFT) ... Findings indicated that an increase of one standard deviation in dietary long-chain n-3 fatty acids (% of energy intake) and balancing long-chain n-3/n-6 decreased the risk of 6-year cognitive decline in verbal fluency with an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.79 (0.66-0.95) and 0.81 (0.68-0.96), respectively, among hypertensives. An interaction with hypertensive status was found for dietary long-chain n-3 fatty acids (g day-1) and WFT decline (likelihood ratio test, P = 0.06). This exposure in plasma cholesteryl esters was also protective against WFT decline, particularly among hypertensives (OR = 0.51"
• Plasma folate concentration and cognitive performance: Rotterdam Scan Study - Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Sep;86(3):728-34 - "After multivariate adjustment, the mean change in test score per 1-SD increase in plasma folate was 0.05 (95% CI: 0.01, 0.09) for global cognitive function, 0.08 (95% CI: 0.04, 0.13) for psychomotor speed, and 0.02 (95% CI: -0.04, 0.07) for memory function ... The odds ratio relating a 1-SD increase in plasma folate to the presence compared with the absence of severe white matter lesions was 0.79 (95% CI: 0.66, 0.94), whereas no relation was seen between folate status and hippocampal or amygdalar volume" - See folic acid at Amazon.com.
• Caffeine May Help Women's Memory - WebMD, 8/6/07 - "Women who reported drinking at least three cups of coffee or tea per day at the study's start showed less of a drop in their test scores during the study, compared with women who reported consuming at most one daily cup of tea or coffee ... The biggest benefit was seen in the women's verbal memory"
• Tea, Chocolate Chemical May Boost Memory - WebMD, 5/30/07 - "studied epicatechin, which is a type of antioxidant called a flavonol, in female mice ... The mice that consumed epicatechin did better at memorizing the maze than the mice that got no epicatechin. The mice that consumed epicatechin and also ran on their running wheels had the best results of all"
• Moderate Alcohol Use May Slow Progression to Dementia - Medscape, 5/21/07 - "Moderate drinkers with MCI who consumed 1 or fewer drink per day of wine had a significantly lower rate of progression to dementia than did abstainers (HR, 0.15"
• Fish consumption, n-3 fatty acids, and subsequent 5-y cognitive decline in elderly men: the Zutphen Elderly Study - Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Apr;85(4):1142-7 - "Fish consumers had significantly (P = 0.01) less 5-y subsequent cognitive decline than did nonconsumers. A linear trend was observed for the relation between the intake of EPA+DHA and cognitive decline (P = 0.01). An average difference of approximately 380 mg/d in EPA+DHA intake was associated with a 1.1-point difference in cognitive decline" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com.
• Plasma n-3 fatty acids and the risk of cognitive decline in older adults: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study - Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Apr;85(4):1103-11 - "Promoting higher intakes of n-3 HUFAs in the diet of hypertensive and dyslipidemic persons may have substantial benefits in reducing their risk of cognitive decline in the area of verbal fluency"
• Folate And B12 May Influence Cognition In Seniors - Science Daily, 2/12/07 - "People with normal vitamin B12 status performed better if their serum folate was high ... But for people with low vitamin B12 status, high serum folate was associated with poor performance on the cognitive test ... For seniors, low vitamin B12 status and high serum folate was the worst combination" - See iHerb folic acid products and vitamin B12 at Amazon.com.
• Report: Nutritional Strategies To Preserve Memory And Cognition - Life Extension Magazine, 2/07
• Folic acid effects two-faced depending on B12 levels, says study - Nutra USA, 1/31/07 - "In this study of older Americans in the age of folic acid fortification, we found direct associations between high serum folate and both anaemia and cognitive impairment in subjects with low vitamin B12 status ... Among subjects with normal vitamin B12 status, on the other hand, high serum folate was associated with protection from cognitive impairment" - See vitamin B12 at Amazon.com.
• Effect of 3-year folic acid supplementation on cognitive function in older adults in the FACIT trial: a randomised, double blind, controlled trial - Lancet. 2007 Jan 20;369(9557):208-16 - "Folic acid supplementation for 3 years significantly improved domains of cognitive function that tend to decline with age"
• Folic Acid Improves Cognitive Performance in Older Adults - Medscape, 1/19/07 - "Patients were randomized to either placebo or 800 µg daily of folic acid for 3 years ... 3 years of treatment with folic acid conferred on individuals resulted in the performance of someone 4.7 years younger for memory, 1.7 years younger for sensorimotor speed, 2.1 years younger for information processing speed, and 1.5 years younger for global cognitive function" - See folic acid at Amazon.com.
• Can Fish Intake Predict Chances Of Developing Dementia? - Science Daily, 1/3/07 - "the participants who reported consuming an average of about three servings of oily fish a week--equivalent to blood levels of DHA at 180 milligrams daily--were associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing dementia of all types, including Alzheimer's disease. No other fatty acid blood level was independently linked to the risk of dementia" - See Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Higher Level Of Certain Fatty Acid Associated With Lower Dementia Risk - Science Daily, 11/28/06 - "men and women in the quartile with the highest DHA levels had a 47 percent lower risk of developing dementia and 39 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than the other three quartiles with lower DHA levels ... those in the top quartile of blood DHA levels reported that they ate an average of .18 grams of DHA a day and an average of three fish servings a week. Participants in the other quartiles ate substantially less fish" - See iHerb or Vitacost DHA products.  My favorite is Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Vegetables May Help Save Brain's Vigor - WebMD, 10/23/06 - "All participants had some mental slowdown as they aged ... But the yearly slowdown was 40% slower for people who ate the most vegetables -- three or four servings daily -- compared with those who ate less than one serving daily"
• Natural Chemical Found In Strawberries Boosts Memory In Healthy Mice - Science Daily, 10/20/06 - "Fisetin, a naturally occurring flavonoid commonly found in strawberries and other fruits and vegetables, stimulates signaling pathways that enhance long-term memory"
• Berries May Help Keep Brain Sharp - WebMD, 8/24/06 - "The radiated rats that had eaten the plain chow performed worst on the maze tests and had the lowest dopamine levels of any of the rats ... But the berry-eating, radiated rats didn't show those shortfalls. Their test results were generally comparable to those of rats that hadn't been radiated"
• Apple Juice May Boost Memory - WebMD, 8/4/06 - "consumption of antioxidant-rich foods such as apples and apple juice can help reduce problems associated with memory loss"
• Preventive Maintenance For the Brain - WashingtonPost.com, 2/21/06 - "increased mental activity throughout life appears to preserve brainpower ... those who exercised the most -- at least three times a week -- were least likely to develop Alzheimer's disease ... diet (for brain health, nutritionists suggest a diet low in saturated fats and rich in vegetables, fruit and fish with omega-3 fatty acids), social life (an active one is thought to improve immunity and reduce inflammation, believed to play a role in Alzheimer's) and health problems like diabetes and heart disease"
• Green Tea May Do Wonders for the Brain - WebMD, 2/17/06 - "Those who reported drinking the most green tea were least likely to show cognitive impairment, based on their test scores ... Drinking at least two daily cups of green tea was tied to the lowest risk of cognitive impairment" - See iHerb or Vitacost green tea products.
• Staying active helps keep the mind sharp - MSNBC, 1/16/06 - "healthy people who reported exercising regularly had a 30 to 40 percent lower risk of dementia"
• Folic Acid to Boost Memory? - Dr. Weil, 12/13/05 - "those who took the folic acid had memory scores equal to people five and a half years younger"
• Low Vitamin E Serum Levels Correlate With Dementia Risk - Clinical Psychiatry News, 10/05 - "those individuals in the bottom tertile of vitamin E plasma levels were at significantly higher risk not only of being demented (OR 2.6, 95% CI) but also of having impaired cognitive function (OR 2.2, 95% CI), compared with the highest vitamin E tertile"
• Eating Fish Associated with Slower Cognitive Decline - Doctor's Guide, 10/12/05 - "Consuming fish at least once a week was associated with a 10% per year slower rate of cognitive decline in elderly people ... consumption of one omega-3 fatty acid in particular, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), is important for memory performance in aged animals" - See iHerb or Vitacost DHA products.  My favorite is Jarrow Max DHA at Amazon.com.
• Fish Fights Aging in the Brain - WebMD, 10/10/05 - "eating fish at least once a week slowed the rate of mental or cognitive decline in elderly people by 10%-13% per year ... Researchers attribute the protective effects of fish on the brain to omega-3 fatty acids" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com or Vitacost.
• Obesity at Midlife Raises Dementia Risk Later - WebMD, 10/10/05 - "people who were obese at midlife were nearly 2.5 times more likely to develop dementia more than 20 years later than those who were normal weight ... high blood pressure and total cholesterol levels at midlife also doubled the risk of dementia in later life ... when a person had all three of these risk factors at midlife, the risk of dementia or Alzheimer's disease was six times higher"
• Fish Consumption and Cognitive Decline With Age in a Large Community Study - Arch Neurol. 2005;62 - "Compared with a decline rate in score of –0.100 SU/y among persons who consumed fish less than weekly, the rate was 10% slower (–0.090 SU/y) among persons who consumed 1 fish meal per week and 13% slower (–0.088 SU/y) among persons who consumed 2 or more fish meals per week"
• Preserving and Restoring Brain Function - Life Extension Magazine, 10/05 - "Clinical trials using small groups of patients with cognitive decline demonstrated significant improvements with phosphatidylserine supplementation, especially among patients in the early stages"
• Veggies May Keep an Aging Brain Sharp - WebMD, 9/28/05
• Leafy Green Vegetables May Help Keep Brains Sharp Through Aging - Science Daily, 9/26/05 - "men who obtained more folate in their diets showed significantly less of a decline in verbal fluency skills over the course of three years than did men with lower dietary folate intake ... High folate levels, both in the diet and in the blood, also appeared to be protective against declines in another category of cognitive skills known as spatial copying"
• Exercise could build brain cells in elderly, study suggests - USAToday, 9/20/05 - "Older mice that exercised on a running wheel developed new brain cells and learned a new task more effectively than older mice that took it easy all day"
• Midlife Obesity Linked to Late-Life Dementia - WebMD, 4/28/05 - "For those with an obese BMI (30 or higher) in middle age, the risk of dementia in old age was 74% higher than for those with normal BMI. For those who were overweight (BMI of 25-29.9), late-life dementia risk was 35% higher than those with normal BMI"
• Fruit and vegetable consumption and cognitive decline in aging women - Ann Neurol 2005;57:713-720 - "Fruits were not associated with cognition or cognitive decline. However, total vegetable intake was significantly associated with less decline. Specifically, on a global score combining all tests, women in the highest quintile of cruciferous vegetables declined slower (by 0.04 unit; 95% confidence interval, 0.003, 0.07; p trend = 0.1) compared with the lowest quintile. Women consuming the most green leafy vegetables also experienced slower decline than women consuming the least amount (by 0.05 unit; 95% confidence interval, 0.02, 0.09; p trend < 0.001). These mean differences were equivalent to those observed for women about 1 to 2 years apart in age"
• Preventing Age-Related Cognitive Decline - Life Extension Magazine, 4/05 - "Free radicals are a significant culprit, interfering with energy metabolism, blood flow, and nerve structure and function. Mitochondrial energy boosters, vitamins, hormones, and other antioxidants are effective weapons in the war against oxidative stress, safely enhancing energy production and blood flow, suppressing inflammation, maintaining the structural integrity of nerve cell components, and facilitating neuronal activity"
• Low Fatty Acid Levels, Dementia Associated in Large Study - Clinical Psychiatry News, 3/05 - "The n-3 fatty acids are an important component of the neuronal membrane, influencing membrane fluidity and all the related functions, such as signal transduction and enzyme function ... Subjects with dementia had the lowest n-3 fatty acid plasma concentrations ... Subjects with dementia had the highest plasma concentrations of saturated fatty acids" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com or Vitacost.
• Cardiovascular Exercise Improves the Aging Brain - Clinical Psychiatry News, 2/05 - "Cardiovascular exercise improves cognitive performance and cortical function in elderly people, and it also appears to roll back age-related losses in brain volume"
• Neuropsychology of vitamin B12 deficiency in elderly dementia patients and control subjects - J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol. 2005 Mar;18(1):33-38 - "cobalamin deficiency may cause a reversible dementia in elderly patients"
• Physical Activity in Old Age Keeps Mind Sharp - WebMD, 12/28/04 - "elderly men who decreased the duration or intensity of their physical activity level over a 10-year period experienced a greater decline in cognitive skills, such as attention, memory, and language skills, than men who maintained the intensity of their physical activity"
• MIT: Magnesium May Reverse Middle-age Memory Loss - Science Daily, 12/27/04 - "In the cover story of the Dec. 2 issue of Neuron, MIT researchers report a possible new role for magnesium: helping maintain memory function in middle age and beyond ... magnesium helps regulate a key brain receptor important for learning and memory" - See iHerb or Vitacost magnesium products.
• Memory Loss - Medscape, 12/7/04 - "diets high in saturated fats and trans-unsaturated fats are associated with greater declines in cognitive functioning.[21] The antioxidants vitamins E and C are thought to reduce risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD),[22] and folate, vitamins B12 and B6 have been shown to play a role in cognitive functioning in women.[23-25] Two recent reviews support the positive influences of a "heart-healthy" diet on reducing risk of cognitive decline[26] and AD.[27] Foods high in vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids, unsaturated fat, and nonhydrogenated fat are the most likely to reduce risk of cognitive decline"
• Patients who follow standard preventive health advice may protect themselves against dementia - Clinical Psychiatry News, 12/04 - "Eat more veggies ... Eat less saturated fat ... Turn off the TV ... Keep your brain, body, and social life active"
• Nourishing Your Noggin - WebMD, 9/22/04 - "For a long time, people believed that a common component of vitamin E called alpha tocopherol was most important, but another form called gamma tocopherol is definitely a protective antioxidant in brain disorders"
• Walk Away From Dementia - WebMD, 9/21/04 - "Those who walked more than 2 miles a day were nearly half as likely to get dementia as men who walked less than one-quarter mile a day"
• Berries Good For Your Memory - Intelihealth, 7/16/04 - "rats that had blueberry matter added to their diet at age 15 months -- middle age in the rat world, and the time memory problems begin -- did much better on memory tests at 19 months (old age in rats) than same-age rats eating the same diet without blueberries"
• Homocysteine, folate, and vitamin B-12 in mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer disease, and vascular dementia - Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Jul;80(1):114-22 - "Subjects in the lowest folate tertile had significantly higher adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for mild cognitive impairment ... Hyperhomocysteinemia was significantly associated with dementia" - See iHerb or Vitacost folic acid products.
• Memory enhancer named best new ingredient - Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals, 4/04 - "Citicoline is a form of choline that helps replenish the brain with phosphatidylserine ... In a double-blind trial of 84 elderly patients with mild to moderate memory loss, subjects who took 1000mg of citicoline daily for six weeks showed improvement in the acquisition of new information and its recall and improvement in global memory efficiency" - See iHerb or Vitacost citicoline products.
• Diet May Improve Cognition, Slow Aging, And Help Protect Against Cosmic Radiation - Intelihealth, 11/10/03 - "The role of diet in cognitive function is one of the vastly understudied areas in the neurosciences ... old dogs that were on an antioxidant diet performed better on a variety of cognitive tests than dogs that were not on the diet ... aged rats on the blueberry-enriched diet had lower NF-kappaB levels than aged rats fed a control data ... among the aged rats, the higher the NF-kappaB levels, the poorer their memory scores"
• Soy Isoflavones May Improve Cognition in Postmenopausal Women - Healthwell Exchange Daily News, 10/2/03 - "Women taking soy isoflavones had significant improvements in recall, logical thinking, planning tasks, and attention compared with women taking a placebo, which translates to better memory and ability to focus on a particular task"
• Creatine May Boost Brain Performance - WebMD, 8/13/03 - "Forty-five vegetarian young adults received either 5 grams of creatine or a placebo powder for six weeks, followed by six weeks of no supplementation. The groups were then switched, and the placebo group received creatine for six weeks and vice versa ... The researchers found that creatine supplementation gave a "significant, measurable boost to brain power." In a memory test that asked participants to recall a string of numbers, people taking creatine recalled an average of 8.5 numbers vs. seven for people not taking the supplement" - See iHerb or Vitacost creatine products.
• E and C May Give Older Women a Mental Edge - Natural Foods Merchandiser, 8/03 - "The women who had taken vitamin C and E supplements for more than 10 years scored an average of 1.5 years younger in cognitive function than those not taking vitamins. The results were even more marked for those with low dietary vitamin E intake: Women with the lowest 30 percent of dietary vitamin E intake who did not take supplements tested two years older in mental function than women who compensated for low dietary intake with antioxidant supplements"
• Music Lessons Boost Verbal Memory - WebMD, 7/28/03
• Chinese Herb [Gastrodine (also called gastrodin)/Gastrodia elata]  May Treat Vascular Dementia - WebMD, 6/11/03 - "Patients who took gastrodine three times a day for 12 weeks did better on tests of mental function and behavior than patients who took Duxil"
• Antioxidants May Protect Against Alcohol Damage - Intelihealth, 6/3/03 - "fed rats a liquid diet containing alcohol for six weeks ... They found a 66 percent decrease in the number of new cells in crucial parts of the brain and an increase in cell death of more than 227 percent ... But in rats that also received injections of the antioxidant ebselen, the damage to developing cells did not occur ... The antioxidant ebselen was used because it is known to have protective effects in the liver and digestive tract and has few side effects in humans"
• Cognitive decline and fatty acid composition of erythrocyte membranes - Am. J. of Clinical Nutr., 4/03 - "studied the relation between erythrocyte membrane fatty acid composition and cognitive decline in free-living volunteers ... Higher proportions of both stearic acid (saturated, 18:0) and total n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids were associated with greater risk of cognitive decline ... Conversely, a higher proportion of total n-3 fatty acids was associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline"
• Effects of Obesity Reach Into Brain - WebMD, 3/5/03 - "obesity works independently -- as well as in conjunction with other risk factors -- to cause a decline in thinking ability, especially memory and learning ... participants may have suffered from heart disease risk factors that were undetectable 50 years ago ... other social and psychological factors associated with obesity and overeating, such as depression and anxiety, may have also affected the decline ... may damage brain function by making it harder for blood to reach the brain, similar to high blood pressure and heart disease"
• Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia: Vitamins Can Help Prevent - WebMD, 2/28/03 - "High levels of a substance in the blood called homocysteine tops the list of potentially new risk factors for heart disease, stroke, and now dementia. A new study suggests that high homocysteine levels are linked with mental declines associated with Alzheimer's disease in elderly people ... High homocysteine levels can be treated very easily with vitamins, including folate, niacin, and B-12"
• HDL Cholesterol Level Linked To Longevity, Cognitive Function - Clinical Psychiatry News, 2/03 - "A group of centenarians maintained significantly higher than normal HDL cholesterol levels, and within the group the parameter was strongly correlated with cognitive function ... The centenarians' offspring were also significantly healthier than their spouses: They were half as likely to have diabetes or heart attacks and had significantly lower blood pressure. No strokes occurred among the offspring ... The presence of HDL might explain the health and longevity in these families. The serum concentration of HDL typically declines with age by a mean of 5 mg/dL every 8 years ... Had the decline followed the normal pattern, the centenarians' HDL would have been about 20 mg/dL. But the actual mean value in the group was 55 mg/dL" - See my HDL page for ways to raise it.
• Exercise Saves Brain Cells - WebMD, 1/29/03 - "aerobic exercise can help protect brain tissue from age-related damage and mental decline ... the brain loses an average of 15% to 25% of its tissue between the ages of 30 and 90 ... exercise decreased the amount of brain-tissue loss associated with aging"
• Using Complementary Treatments - PsychiatricTimes.com, 11/15/02 - "Ginseng is known as an adaptogen. Animal studies report a reversal of scopolamine-induced memory deficits in rats, an increase in acetylcholine uptake and improved learning performance. In humans, two randomized, controlled trials reported some improvement in cognitive function over eight and 12 weeks of ginseng use. Another study, looking specifically at 50 elderly subjects, reported improvement over baseline measures ... Research has shown huperzine A to be a selective and reversible inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase. It also has been shown to lessen neuronal toxicity caused by glutamate. Initial small investigations reported improvement in cognitive functions of subjects with AD ... Phosphatidylserine is active at cell membranes, including synaptic membrane zones. Partial improvement of learning and recall capacity was noted in subjects with age-related cognitive decline"
• Cognitive Training Improves Memory, Reasoning, Concentration In Seniors - Doctor's Guide, 11/13/02
• The Bias is Overwhelming - Vitacost, 8/21/02 - "It is rather appalling that the news media has been giving so much attention to this ridiculously short term negative study on ginkgo. It is even more appalling that some media sources come up with catchy phrases like “Forget the ginkgo”. Six weeks is not enough time for any supplement or drug to work when it comes to memory"
• An Indian Spice for Alzheimer’s? - Dr. Weil, 6/12/02 - "Curcumin blocked the accumulation of beta-amaloid plaque and also appeared to reduce inflammation related to Alzheimer’s disease in neurologic tissue. The rats fed curcumin also performed better on memory tests than rats on normal diets ... Researchers at the University of Illinois have also found that it helps prevent plaque formation. And preliminary studies at Vanderbilt University suggest that curcumin may block the progression of multiple sclerosis ... only low dose curcumin reduced plaque in the Alzheimer’s disease studies ... Turmeric appears to have significant anti-inflammatory and cancer-protective effects as well"
• Active Life Keeps Brain Healthy - WebMD, 5/21/02 - "An active lifestyle -- even if begun only in middle age -- spurs brain-cell growth and lowers risk of Alzheimer's disease ... In another study published in the same issue of the Annals of Neurology, researchers find that a particular chemical in the blood may be linked to Alzheimer's and other dementing diseases ... The chemical is called hs-CRP. It is a sign of inflammation -- the body's protective response to injury or infection" - See my inflammation page for natural ways to reduce it.
• Nutrition Affects Thinking in Elderly - WebMD, 4/25/02 - "In this study of healthy elderly people, higher concentrations of folic acid and vitamin B-12 were associated with increased memory and thinking ability"
• Breakfast Gives Memory a Boost - HealthandAge, 1/11/02
• Caffeine Sharpens the Mind - WebMD, 12/20/01 - "The researchers looked at 40 people over 65 and tested their memory in the morning and again in the afternoon a few days later. Each time, they drank a 12 oz. cup of coffee before going through a series of memory tests. Some drank decaffeinated coffee and some had the real thing but were not told which one they were getting ... those who drank decaffeinated coffee "showed a significant decline in memory performance from morning to afternoon," Ryan says. Those who drank the caffeine had no fall in their memory test scores"
• Memory vitamins - Life Extension Magazine, 9/01 - "Folate and vitamin B12 work together to enhance cognition"
• It is Never Too Late to Regenerate Your Brain - Life Extension Magazine, 6/01 - "Lower your stress, lower your cortisol levels and it is likely that your brain can regenerate its powers to learn and remember"
• Vitamin B12: Surprising New Findings - Life Extension Magazine, 12/00
• Breakfast May Improve Memory in Healthy Elderly - Doctor's Guide, 10/24/01
• Alzheimer's Disease May Be Linked to Deficiencies in Vitamin B12 or Folate - Doctor's Guide, 5/8/01 - "Study authors theorized that vitamin B12 or folate deficiencies affect Alzheimer's disease by influencing neurotransmitters or the levels of the amino acid homocysteine in the body. Either vitamin B12 or folate deficiency can increase homocysteine levels. Homocysteine has a neurotoxic effect that could lead to cell death or neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease"
• Folic Acid May Reduce Age-Related Memory Problems - WebMD, 4/27/01 - "High homocysteine levels were independently associated with poor performance on the memory tests, as were low levels of the vitamin folic acid. Folic acid, or folate, has been shown to significantly lower homocysteine levels ... a cocktail of three vitamin supplements -- folic acid, B12, and B6 -- can dramatically lower homocysteine levels, even in those who get the recommended levels of the vitamins in their diets ... Homocysteine levels naturally increase as you age ... Jacobsen, 62, recommends taking 400-800 mcg of folic acid every day and 25-100 mg of vitamin B6. He says it is not clear if B12 supplementation is beneficial in younger people, but it does appear to benefit those over 50. He takes 500 mcg of B12 each day"
• Exercise Shown to Help Keep Elderly Minds More Alert - WebMD, 4/10/01 - "after taking into consideration factors such as age, sex, and level of education, people who engaged in all levels of physical activity from low to high had lower risks for thinking impairment, and were also less likely to have Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia"
• Sustain the Brain - Nutrition Science News, 2/01
• A Drink A Day May Keep Memory OK - WebMD, 8/1/00
• Enhancing Cognitive Function - Life Extension Magazine, 5/00
• Cocktails & Vitamin E Improve Memory - Nutrition Science News, 11/99
• Brain boosters: Pills and potions - CNN, 11/5/99
• Smart foods - CNN, 6/24/99

Memory and Hypertension:

• Midlife and Late-Life Blood Pressure and Dementia in Japanese Elderly: The Hisayama Study - Hypertension. 2011 May 9 - "We followed up a total of 668 community-dwelling Japanese individuals without dementia, aged 65 to 79 years, for 17 years and examined the associations of late-life and midlife hypertension with the risk of vascular dementia and Alzheimer disease using the Cox proportional hazards model ... The age- and sex-adjusted incidence of vascular dementia significantly increased with elevated late-life blood pressure levels (normal: 2.3, prehypertension: 8.4, stage 1 hypertension: 12.6, and stage 2 hypertension: 18.9 per 1000 person-years; P(trend)<0.001), whereas no such association was observed for Alzheimer disease (P(trend)=0.88). After adjusting for potential confounding factors, subjects with prehypertension and stage 1 or stage 2 hypertension had 3.0-fold, 4.5-fold, and 5.6-fold greater risk of vascular dementia, respectively, compared with subjects with normal blood pressure. Likewise, there was a positive association of midlife blood pressure levels with the risk of vascular dementia but not with the risk of Alzheimer disease. Compared with those without hypertension in both midlife and late life, subjects with midlife hypertension had an ≈5-fold greater risk of vascular dementia, regardless of late-life blood pressure levels. Our findings suggest that midlife hypertension and late-life hypertension are significant risk factors for the late-life onset of vascular dementia but not for that of Alzheimer disease in a general Japanese population. Midlife hypertension is especially strongly associated with a greater risk of vascular dementia, regardless of late-life blood pressure levels"
• Children with high blood pressure more likely to have learning disabilities, study finds - Science Daily, 11/9/10
• Abdominal fat at middle age associated with greater risk of dementia: Obesity linked to lower total brain volume - Science Daily, 5/20/10 - "excess abdominal fat places otherwise healthy, middle-aged people at risk for dementia later in life ... 24.3 million people have some form of dementia, with 4.6 million new cases annually"
• Lowering Systolic BP in Midlife Reduces the Risk of Late-Life Dementia - Medscape, 5/17/10 - "17.7% of cases could be attributed to prehypertension (systolic BP 120 to <140 mm Hg), regardless of treatment status, or 11 excess cases per 1000"
• Lowering Midlife Levels of Systolic Blood Pressure as a Public Health Strategy to Reduce Late-Life Dementia. Perspective From the Honolulu Heart Program/Honolulu Asia Aging Study - Hypertension. 2010 Apr 19 - "Compared with those with SBP <120 mm Hg, untreated, and <50 years of age at baseline, 17.7% (95% CI: 4.6% to 29.1%) of the cases were attributable to prehypertensive levels (SBP: 120 to <140 mm Hg) of SBP, translating into 11 excess cases per 1000. Among those who did not report taking antihypertensive medication in midlife, 27% (95% CI: 8.9% to 42.1%) of dementia cases can be attributed to systolic BP >/=120 mm Hg, translating into 17 excess cases per 1000. Although population-attributable risk estimates for population subgroups may differ by relative risk for dementia or prevalence of elevated levels of blood pressure, these data suggest that reducing midlife systolic BP is an effective prevention strategy to reduce risk for late-life dementia"
• Hypertension Drugs May Cut Alzheimer's Risk - WebMD, 1/12/10 - "The patients taking an angiotensin receptor blocker had a 19% lower risk of developing dementia compared to those taking lisinopril and a 24% lower risk compared to use of other blood pressure/heart medications. People taking both an ACE inhibitor and an angiotensin receptor blocker, which both target the angiotensin system, had a 46% lower risk of dementia compared with those taking other medications"
• Dementia linked to high blood pressure years earlier - Science Daily, 1/12/10 - "Women who, at the start of the study, were hypertensive, meaning a blood pressure of 140/90 or higher, had significantly more white matter lesions on their MRI scans eight years later than participants with normal blood pressure. Lesions were more common in the frontal lobe, the brain's emotional control center and home to personality, than in the occipital, parietal or temporal lobes"
• Hypertension Linked to White-Matter Disease Progression: Study - Medscape, 1/7/10 - "Long-standing hypertension is strongly associated with progression of white-matter hyperintensity (WMH), which is known to be associated with new or worsening cognitive impairment and dementia"
• Antihypertensive Therapy Slows Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer Disease - Medscape, 9/29/09 - "patients using antihypertensive treatments had significantly higher MMSE scores at 1, 2, and 3 years, compared with patients not taking antihypertensive treatments"
• High Blood Pressure Linked To Memory Problems In Middle Age - Science Daily, 8/26/09 - "The study found that people with high diastolic blood pressure, which is the bottom number of a blood pressure reading, were more likely to have cognitive impairment, or problems with their memory and thinking skills, than people with normal diastolic readings ... For every 10 point increase in the reading, the odds of a person having cognitive problems was seven percent higher" - [Abstract]
• High Blood Pressure May Make It Difficult For The Elderly To Think Clearly - Science Daily, 12/15/08 - "subjects whose average systolic blood pressure was 130 or higher saw a significant decrease in cognitive function when their blood pressure spiked ... study subjects whose average blood pressure was low or normal saw no change in their cognitive functioning – even when their blood pressure shot up"
• Angiotensin Receptor Blockers Are Lower Incidence, Progression Of Alzheimer's Disease - Science Daily, 7/27/08 - "Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have, for the first time, found that angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs)—a particular class of anti-hypertensive medicines—are associated with a striking decrease in the occurrence and progression of dementia" - Note:  Telmisartan, which I've been saying should be a first line treatment, is an ARB.  See telmisartan at OffshoreRx1.com.
• n-3 Fatty acids, hypertension and risk of cognitive decline among older adults in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study - Public Health Nutr. 2008 Jan;11(1):17-29 - "Word Fluency Test (WFT) ... an increase of one standard deviation in dietary long-chain n-3 fatty acids (% of energy intake) and balancing long-chain n-3/n-6 decreased the risk of 6-year cognitive decline in verbal fluency with an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.79 (0.66-0.95) and 0.81 (0.68-0.96), respectively, among hypertensives. An interaction with hypertensive status was found for dietary long-chain n-3 fatty acids (g day-1) and WFT decline (likelihood ratio test, P = 0.06). This exposure in plasma cholesteryl esters was also protective against WFT decline, particularly among hypertensives (OR = 0.51" - See Mega Twin EPA at Amazon.com.
• High Blood Pressure Associated With Risk For Mild Cognitive Impairment - Science Daily, 12/12/07 - "Hypertension (high blood pressure) was associated with an increased risk of all types of mild cognitive impairment that was mostly driven by an increased risk of non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment ... Preventing and treating hypertension may have an important impact in lowering the risk of cognitive impairment"
• High Blood Pressure May Heighten Effects Of Alzheimer's Disease - Science Daily, 11/28/07 - "Having hypertension, or high blood pressure, reduces blood flow in the brains of adults with Alzheimer's disease"
• Arterial Stiffness and Memory and Concentration - Medscape, 11/23/07 - "Increasing pulse-pressure levels and higher baseline pulse-wave velocity — indications of increased arterial stiffness — were linked to a decline in memory and concentration among aging individuals who participated in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging"
• High Blood Pressure Or Irregular Heartbeat Linked To Alzheimer's Disease Progression - Science Daily, 11/5/07 - "10 with high blood pressure (systolic pressure over 160) at the time of AD diagnosis showed a rate of memory loss roughly 100 percent faster than those with normal blood pressure ... 10 with atrial fibrillation at the time of the diagnosis showed a rate of memory decline that was 75 percent faster than those with normal heartbeats"
• Antihypertensive Treatment May Help Maintain Memory - Medscape, 9/27/07 - "Pretreatment correlation of parietal and prefrontal change was 0.61 vs 0.94 after treatment. According to the investigators, similar differences were observed for all areas, with an average pretreatment correlation of 0.66 vs an average posttreatment correlation of 0.91"
• Some Hypertension Drugs May Help Reduce Dementia Risk - Science Daily, 5/5/07 - "Centrally acting drugs include captropril (Capoten®), fosinopril (Monopril®), lisinopril (Prinivil® or Zestri®), perindopril (Aceon®), ramipril (Altace®) and trandolapril (Mavik®) ... The study found a link between taking centrally active ACE inhibitors and lower rates of mental decline as measured by the Modified Mini-Mental State Exam, a test that evaluates memory, language, abstract reasoning and other cognitive functions"
• Elderly Blood Pressure Variability Affects Cognitive Function - Doctor's Guide, 5/26/06 - "study suggested that lowering the systolic BP by 20 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure by 10 mm Hg would have a considerable beneficial effect on the preservation of cognitive abilities in the whole population"
• Senior Moment? Check Blood Pressure - WebMD, 5/17/06 - "the greater the numeric differences in blood pressure readings during the day, the greater the risk of cognitive dysfunction"
• Sustained Blood Pressure Treatment Lowers Dementia Risk In Elderly - Science Daily, 4/10/06 - "each year of treatment reduced the risk of developing dementia during the follow-up period by about 3 percent. Compared with men who were never treated for hypertension, the risk of developing dementia during the follow-up period was: ... 60 percent lower in those treated more than 12 years -- similar to the risk in a control group of 446 men with normal blood pressure"
• Uncontrolled High Blood Pressure Means More Cognitive Problems in Old Age - Doctor's Guide, 12/5/05
• Hypertension Control May Lower Risk of Dementia - Clinical Psychiatry News, 10/13/05 - "effective antihypertensive therapy may reduce cognitive decline in these patients"
• Brain May Benefit by Lowering Blood Pressure - WebMD, 9/7/05 - "lowering blood pressure may halt or slow the progression of brain abnormalities called white matter hyperintensities (WMH) ... WMH may be accompanied by dementia, depression, and trouble with walking"
• High Blood Pressure Related Decline in Cognitive Function Affects Adults Young and Old - Doctor's Guide, 10/5/04 - "To the extent that BP (blood pressure) effects on cognition are not reversible, it is important to prevent an increase in BP levels as early as possible in the life cycle"
• Hypertension Linked to Cognitive Decline at All Ages - Medscape, 10/4/04
• High Blood Pressure and the Elderly Mind - WebMD, 10/30/03
• Hypertension May not Speed Brain Decline - WebMD, 9/29/03
• High Blood Pressure Causes Memory Lapse? - WebMD, 9/23/03 - "some short-term memory lapses often attributed to aging may actually result from having high blood pressure"
• Perindopril/Indapamide Therapy May Help Reduce Dementia Risk In Patients With Cerebrovascular Disease - Doctor's Guide, 6/16/03
• Low Blood Pressure and Risk of Dementia in the Kungsholmen Project: A 6-Year Follow-up Study - Archives of Neurology, 2/03 - "Subjects with very high systolic pressure (>180 vs 141-180 mm Hg) had an adjusted relative risk of 1.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0-2.3; P = .07) for Alzheimer disease, and 1.6 (95% CI, 1.1-2.2) for dementia ... high diastolic pressure (>90 mm Hg) was not associated with dementia incidence, whereas extremely low diastolic pressure (65 vs 66-90 mm Hg) produced an adjusted relative risk of 1.7 (95% CI, 1.1-2.4) for Alzheimer disease and 1.5 (95% CI, 1.0-2.1; P = .03) for dementia"
• Blood Pressure Linked To Cognitive Performance In Elderly Men - Doctor's Guide, 2/11/03 - "Diastolic blood pressure at 68 years of age showed an inverse relationship to men's performance on verbal, spatial and speed assessments when tested at 81 years ... systolic blood pressure at 68 years showed an inverse relationship with spatial performance"
• BP Lowering May Halt Descent Into Dementia - Clinical Psychiatry News, 12/02 - "Dr. Hansson served as cochair of SCOPE, a 15-nation study in which 4,937 mildly hypertensive patients aged 70-89 were randomized to the angiotensin-receptor blocker candesartan or diuretic-based therapy. Serial Mini-Mental Status Exams (MMSEs) conducted during more than 18,000 patient-years of follow-up demonstrated that among individuals with a baseline MMSE of 24-28—indicative of normal to slightly impaired cognitive function—those in the candesartan arm had a mean 0.5-point decline in MMSE scores during follow-up, compared with a 6-point drop in those on a diuretic. The cognitive benefit was even more pronounced in patients over age 85"
• Blood Pressure Medication Preserves Cognitive Function In Older African-Americans - Doctor's Guide, 10/14/02
• Blood Pressure Meds Help Heart and Mind - WebMD, 10/14/02
• Blood Pressure Drugs Keep Brain Healthy - KGTV.com, 10/14/02 - "the continuous use of medications to lower blood pressure reduced the risk of memory loss by more than one-third"
• Hypertension May Signal Vascular Dementia For Some In Later Life - Doctor's Guide, 5/7/02
• Lowering High Blood Pressure Can Reverse Some Dementia in the Elderly, Improves Memory and Thinking Limited by Vascular Dementia - WebMD, 5/18/01 - "At 12 weeks, both thinking and memory improved by 15% to 40%, and there were similar improvements in gait and other movements, says Jacobson. These improvements were still present at six months"
• Blood Pressure Control Improves Cognitive Function In Hypertensive Patients - Doctor's Guide, 5/17/01 - "When the tests were repeated at 12 and 24 weeks, patients averaged a 15-40 percent improvement in the areas of executive function, memory, concentration and information processing, as well as spatial skills and some motor function"
• Short-term Cognition Improves With Seroquel (Quetiapine Fumarate) for Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder - Doctor's Guide, 5/8/01
• Cognitive Effects Seen With Mild Hypertension - Doctor's Guide, 2/19/01 - "But even in these young, high functioning, mild hypertensives you can find differences and deficits in cognitive function of about 4 Intelligence Quotient (IQ) points."
• Dementia Protection Of Anti-Hypertensive Medication Underestimated - Doctor's Guide, 1/23/01
• Lower Blood Pressure Means Less Chance of Dementia, Study Finds Thinking Skills Fall in People With High BP - WebMD, 12/14/00
• High blood pressure, cholesterol and weight increase dementia risk - Doctor's Guide, 5/2/00
• High Blood Pressure Linked To Mental Decline - Doctor's Guide, 11/10/98
• Antihypertensive Drugs May Lower Risk Of Dementia - Doctor's Guide, 10/23/98
• High Blood Pressure Could Mean Greater Risk Of Dementia - Doctor's Guide, 3/19/98
• High Blood Pressure Speeds Brain Shrinkage And Memory Loss In Elderly - Doctor's Guide, 7/7/97
• Research: Hypertension speeds up brain aging, shrinkage - CNN, 7/7/00

Other News:

• Study: Mental decline can start at 45 - USATODAY.com, 1/6/12 - "Among men aged 45 to 49, reasoning skills declined by nearly 4 percent, and for those aged 65 to 70 those skills dropped by about nearly 10 percent ... For women, the decline in reasoning approached 5 percent for those aged 45 to 49 and about 7 percent for those 65 to 70, the researchers found"
• Glucose tolerance status and risk of dementia in the community: The Hisayama Study - Neurology. 2011 Sep 20;77(12):1126-34 - "The age- and sex-adjusted incidence of all-cause dementia, Alzheimer disease (AD), and vascular dementia (VaD) were significantly higher in subjects with diabetes than in those with normal glucose tolerance. These associations remained robust even after adjustment for confounding factors for all-cause dementia and AD, but not for VaD (all-cause dementia: adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 1.74, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.19 to 2.53, p = 0.004; AD: adjusted HR = 2.05, 95% CI = 1.18 to 3.57, p = 0.01; VaD: adjusted HR = 1.82, 95% CI = 0.89 to 3.71, p = 0.09). Moreover, the risks of developing all-cause dementia, AD, and VaD significantly increased with elevated 2-hour postload glucose (PG) levels even after adjustment for covariates, but no such associations were observed for fasting plasma glucose (FPG) levels: compared with those with 2-hour PG levels of <6.7 mmol/L, the multivariable-adjusted HRs of all-cause dementia and AD significantly increased in subjects with 2-hour PG levels of 7.8 to 11.0 mmol/L or over, and the risk of VaD was significantly higher in subjects with levels of ≥11.1 mmol/L ... Our findings suggest that diabetes is a significant risk factor for all-cause dementia, AD, and probably VaD. Moreover, 2-hour PG levels, but not FPG levels, are closely associated with increased risk of all-cause dementia, AD, and VaD"
• How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit - NYTimes.com, 7/27/11 - "While the wholly sedentary volunteers, and there were many of these, scored significantly worse over the years on tests of cognitive function, the most active group showed little decline. About 90 percent of those with the greatest daily energy expenditure could think and remember just about as well, year after year ... The same message emerged from another study published last week in the same journal. In it, women, most in their 70s, with vascular disease or multiple risk factors for developing that condition completed cognitive tests and surveys of their activities over a period of five years. Again, they were not spry. There were no marathon runners among them. The most active walked. But there was “a decreasing rate of cognitive decline” among the active group, the authors wrote. Their ability to remember and think did still diminish, but not as rapidly as among the sedentary ...scientists from the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and other institutions have shown, for the first time, that light-duty weight training changes how well older women think and how blood flows within their brains. After 12 months of lifting weights twice a week, the women performed significantly better on tests of mental processing ability than a control group of women who completed a balance and toning program, while functional M.R.I. scans showed that portions of the brain that control such thinking were considerably more active in the weight trainers"
• Humans Alone See Brains Shrink With Age, Researchers Find - WSJ, 7/26/11 - "they found the human brains lost significant volume over time, while the chimpanzees didn't ... Stress can affect brain size. So can depression, research shows. Diet can be a factor, too. More broadly, though, humanity's unusual shrinking brain just may be the price our species pays for living so much longer than other primates ... During those extra decades of life, natural cell-repair mechanisms may wear out and neural circuits wither, the researchers said. As the brain normally ages, it acquires the neural equivalent of sore knees and stiff fingers. Natural grooves in the brain widen. Healthy swellings subside. And tangles of damaged neurons become dense thickets of dysfunctional synapses"
• Plasma homocysteine and cognitive decline in older hypertensive subjects - Int Psychogeriatr. 2011 May 6:1-9 - "Higher homocysteine showed an independent association with greater cognitive decline in three domains: speed of cognition (β = -27.33, p = 0.001), episodic memory (β = -1.25, p = 0.02) and executive function (β = -0.05, p = 0.04). The association with executive function was no longer significant after inclusion of folate in the regression model (β = -0.032, p = 0.22). Change in working memory and attention were not associated with plasma homocysteine, folate or B12. High homocysteine was associated with greater decline with a Cohen's d effect size of approximately 0.7 compared to low homocysteine. Conclusions: In a population of older hypertensive patients, higher plasma homocysteine was associated with cognitive decline"
• Packing on the pounds in middle age linked to dementia - Science Daily, 5/2/11 - "people who were overweight or obese at midlife had an 80 percent higher risk of developing dementia, Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia in late life compared to people with normal BMI"
• Study links inflammation in brain to some memory decline - Science Daily, 4/13/11 - "adults with measureable levels of C reactive protein recalled fewer words and had smaller medial temporal lobes ... Scientists don't know if the inflammation indicated by the C reactive protein is the cause of the memory loss, if it reflects a response to some other disease process or if the two factors are unrelated. But if inflammation causes the cognitive decline, relatively simple treatments could help"
• High cholesterol and blood pressure in middle age tied to early memory problems - Science Daily, 2/21/11 - "people who had higher cardiovascular risk were more likely to have lower cognitive function and a faster rate of overall cognitive decline compared to those with the lowest risk of heart disease. A 10-percent higher cardiovascular risk was associated with poorer cognitive test scores in all areas except reasoning for men and fluency for women. For example, a 10 percent higher cardiovascular risk was associated with a 2.8 percent lower score in the test of memory for men and a 7.1 percent lower score in the memory test for women ... Higher cardiovascular risk was also associated with a 10-year faster rate of overall cognitive decline in both men and women compared to those with lower cardiovascular risk"
• Long-term exposure to pesticides may be linked to dementia - Science Daily, 12/1/10
• Protein in the urine: A warning sign for cognitive decline - Science Daily, 11/21/10 - "low amounts of albumin in the urine, at levels not traditionally considered clinically significant, strongly predict faster cognitive decline in older women ... participants with a urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio of >5 mcg/mg at the start of the study experienced cognitive decline at a rate 2 to 7 times faster in all cognitive measures than that attributed to aging alone over an average 6 years of follow-up"
• 'Sweet 16' tool may be useful for detecting cognitive impairment - Science Daily, 11/8/10
• High-Quality Relationships May Have Long-Term Protective Effect Against Dementia - Medscape, 10/28/10 - "participants older than 65 years showed those who reported being satisfied with their relationships at baseline had a 23% reduced risk of developing dementia from 5 to 15 years later compared with those who were not satisfied"
• Metabolic syndrome in 25% of older people with intellectual disability - Fam Pract. 2010 Oct 11 - "intellectual disabilities (IDs) ... The prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in the population with ID is significantly higher than that in the general Dutch population aged ≥50 years"
• Promising drug candidate reverses age-related memory loss in mice - Science Daily, 10/12/10 - "Such memory loss has been linked with high levels of 'stress' steroid hormones known as glucocorticoids which have a deleterious effect on the part of the brain that helps us to remember. An enzyme called 11beta-HSD1 is involved in making these hormones and has been shown to be more active in the brain during aging ... We found that life-long partial deficiency of 11beta-HSD1 prevented memory decline with aging. But we were very surprised to find that the blocking compound works quickly over a few days to improve memory in old mice suggesting it might be a good treatment for the already elderly ... We previously showed that carbenoxolone, an old drug that blocks multiple enzymes including 11beta-HSD1, improves memory in healthy elderly men and in patients with type 2 diabetes after just a month of treatment, so we are optimistic that our new compounds will be effective in humans. The next step is to conduct further studies with our preclinical candidate to prove that the compound is safe to take into clinical trials, hopefully within a year"
• Metabolic Syndrome, Brain MRI, and Cognition - Diabetes Care. 2010 Sep 17 - "MetS exerts detrimental effects on memory and executive functioning in community-dwelling subjects without clinical strokes or dementia. Men are more affected than women, particularly if they have high inflammatory markers"
• Mild memory loss is not a part of normal aging, new research finds - Science Daily, 9/15/10 - "Simply getting older is not the cause of mild memory lapses often called senior moments ... even the very early mild changes in memory that are much more common in old age than dementia are caused by the same brain lesions associated with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias ... The very early mild cognitive changes once thought to be normal aging are really the first signs of progressive dementia"
• Moderate drinking, especially wine, associated with better cognitive function - Science Daily, 8/18/10

• Gum inflammation linked to Alzheimer's disease - Science Daily, 8/3/10 - "cognitively normal subjects with periodontal inflammation are at an increased risk of lower cognitive function compared to cognitively normal subjects with little or no periodontal inflammation ... subjects with Alzheimer's disease had a significantly higher level of antibodies and inflammatory molecules associated with periodontal disease in their plasma compared to healthy people ... the Digit Symbol Test, or DST, a part of the standard measurement of adult IQ ... periodontal inflammation at age 70 was strongly associated with lower DST scores at age 70. Subjects with periodontal inflammation were nine times more likely to test in the lower range of the DST compared to subjects with little or no periodontal inflammation" - Note:  See my dental page.  Gum disease has been linked to several other heath conditions including diabetes and heart disease.  Over the years I've tried several methods for gum disease including floss, Periostat and Arestin and here is the only method that worked:

  • Periogard - Needs a prescription but is usually available at you dentist for around $10.
  • Sunstar Butler Proxabrush GUM Eez-Lok Handle
  • Sunstar Butler Proxabrush GUM Eez-Lok Handle - a better model than the above
  •  Sunstar Butler GUM Proxabrush Refill Ultra Wide (618) - use this wide brush for the back teeth
  • Butler 612 Soft Picks or Butler Ultra-Fine - use these narrower brushes for the front teeth
  • Soak the brush in the Periogard than run it between your teeth.
• Medications found to cause long term cognitive impairment of aging brain, study finds - Science Daily,7/13/10 - "They are sold over the counter under various brand names such as Benadryl®, Dramamine®, Excedrin PM®, Nytol®, Sominex®, Tylenol PM®, and Unisom®. Other anticholinergic drugs, such as Paxil®, Detrol®, Demerol® and Elavil® are available only by prescription ... taking one anticholinergic significantly increased an individual's risk of developing mild cognitive impairment and taking two of these drugs doubled this risk"
• Homocysteine is associated with hippocampal and white matter atrophy in older subjects with mild hypertension - Int Psychogeriatr. 2010 Apr 7:1-8 - "In older hypertensives, plasma homocysteine levels are associated with increased rates of progressive white matter and hippocampal atrophy"
• Cut out the (estrogen) middleman: Risky therapy for aging brain may be avoidable by focusing instead on hormone's target - Science Daily, 12/8/09 - "A split-personality chemical, estrogen is thought to protect neural circuits and boost learning and memory, while at the same time increasing cancer risk when taken in high doses"
• Fat around the middle increases the risk of dementia - Science Daily, 11/23/09 - "Anyone carrying a lot of fat around the middle is at greater risk of dying prematurely due to a heart attack or stroke ... If they nevertheless manage to live beyond 70, they run a greater risk of dementia ... women who were broader around the waist than the hips in middle age ran slightly more than twice the risk of developing dementia when they got old"
• Impaired Kidney Function Linked To Cognitive Decline In Elderly - Science Daily, 9/29/09 - "poor kidney function, assessed at the beginning of the study, was linked with a more rapid rate of decline in cognition over the next several years – not in visuospatial ability or perceptual speed, but in three specific areas: episodic, semantic and working memory ... The rate of decline in cognition was equivalent to that of a person seven years older at baseline"
• Higher Diastolic, Not Systolic, Blood Pressure Linked to Impaired Cognition - Medscape, 8/25/09 - "Higher diastolic blood pressure (DBP) levels, but not systolic blood pressure (SBP) levels, can impair cognitive status in individuals without prior history of stroke or transient ischemic attack"
• Statin Drugs May Cut Dementia Risk - WebMD, 7/14/09 - "people who took statin drugs were 58% less likely to develop dementia than those who did not ... So what is going on? A risk factor for dementia is high insulin; one theory is that statins may lower the high insulin levels in the brain. Statins have also been shown to reduce levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation that has been linked to the pathology that can lead to dementia"
• Diabetes Linked To Cognitive Deterioration - Science Daily, 3/5/09 - "people with diabetes were 1.5 more likely to experience cognitive decline, and 1.6 more likely to suffer from dementia than people without diabetes ... suggests that higher-than-average levels of blood glucose (blood sugar) may have a role in this relationship ... in people with type 2 diabetes, higher levels of haemoglobin A1C (a measure of average blood glucose) are significantly associated with poorer performance on three cognitive tasks which require memory, speed and ability to manage multiple tasks at the same time. A higher A1C level was also associated with a lower score on a test of global cognitive function ... lowering A1C levels could slow the accelerated rate of cognitive decline experienced by people with diabetes"
• Higher Blood Sugar Levels Linked to Lower Brain Function in Diabetics - Doctor's Guide, 2/11/09 - "The ongoing Memory in Diabetes (MIND) study, a sub-study of the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes Trial (ACCORD), found a statistically significant inverse relationship between A1C levels over a period of 2 to 3 months and subjects' scores on four cognitive tests ... This study adds to the growing evidence that poorer blood glucose control is strongly associated with poorer memory function and that these associations can be detected well before a person develops severe memory loss"
• Statins Reduce Dementia & Cognitive Impairment Risk - Physician's Weekly Article, 10/13/08 - "Patients who had used statins were about half as likely as those who did not use the drugs to develop dementia or CIND"
• Investigation on the relationship between diabetes mellitus type 2 and cognitive impairment - Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2008 Oct 8 - "Subjects with diabetes (n=60) had lower MMSE score than those without diabetes (P<.01). Diabetes was also associated with increased odds of cognitive decline as determined by MMSE scores (odds ratio=1.9; CI=95%, 1.01-3.6). A significant correlation between duration of disease and cognitive dysfunction was observed, P=0.001 ... Diabetes mellitus is associated with lower levels of cognitive function"
• Age-related Memory Loss Tied To Slip In Filtering Information Quickly - Science Daily, 9/2/08
• Even Without Dementia, Mental Skills Decline Years Before Death - Science Daily, 8/29/08 - "The start of the decline is different for various cognitive abilities. Perceptual speed, which measures how quickly people can compare figures, begins declining nearly 15 years before death. Spatial ability starts declining nearly eight years before death. And verbal ability starts declining about six-and-a-half years before death"
• Telmisartan prevented cognitive decline partly due to PPAR-gamma activation - Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2008 Aug 17 - "Pretreatment with a non-hypotensive dose of telmisartan significantly inhibited such cognitive decline. Interestingly, co-treatment with GW9662, a PPAR-gamma antagonist, partially inhibited this improvement of cognitive decline. Another ARB, losartan, which has less PPAR-gamma agonistic effect, also inhibited Abeta-injection-induced cognitive decline; however the effect was smaller than that of telmisartan and was not affected by GW9662. Immunohistochemical staining for Abeta showed the reduced Abeta deposition in telmisartan-treated mice. However, this reduction was not observed in mice co-administered GW9662. These findings suggest that ARB has a preventive effect on cognitive impairment in Alzheimer disease, and telmisartan, with PPAR-gamma activation, could exert a stronger effect"
• Statins May Prevent Dementia in Older Adults - Doctor's Guide, 7/29/08 - "People at high risk for dementia who took statins were half as likely to develop dementia as those who do not take statins"
• Women Over 90 More Likely To Have Dementia Than Men - Science Daily, 7/2/08
• Memory Loss Linked To Poor Diet, Study Suggests - Science Daily, 6/19/08 - "Researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) have linked memory loss to a diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol"
• Smoking Appears Linked With Risk for Poor Memory in Middle Age - Medscape, 6/12/08 - "current smokers vs participants who had never smoked had a 37% greater risk of being in the lowest quintile of cognitive function (odds ratio, 1.37"
• Perk of Good Job: Aging Mind Is Sharp - WebMD, 5/7/08 - "Jobs that have elements where you need to solve problems, plan and organize, and think flexibly and on your feet appear to carry cognitive benefits throughout your life. You can potentially draw on them later as reserves"
• Memory Of One In Three People Over 70 Is Impaired, Study Shows - Science Daily, 3/18/08 - "More than a third of people over age 70 have some form of memory loss according to a national study by a team of researchers at Duke University Medical Center"
• Stress Hormone Impacts Memory, Learning In Diabetic Rodents - 2/17/08 - "A new study in diabetic rodents finds that increased levels of a stress hormone produced by the adrenal gland disrupt the healthy functioning of the hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for learning and short-term memory. Moreover, when levels of the adrenal glucocorticoid hormone corticosterone (also known as cortisol in humans) are returned to normal, the hippocampus recovers its ability to build new cells and regains the "plasticity" needed to compensate for injury and disease and adjust to change"
• More Brain Research Suggests 'Use It Or Lose It' - Science Daily, 2/7/08 - "It appears that if a cell is not appropriately stimulated by other cells, it self-destructs ... This self-destruct process is also known to be an important factor in stroke, Alzheimer's and motor neuron diseases, leading to the loss of essential nerve cells from the adult brain"
• Testosterone May Improve Mental Function - Science Daily, 1/14/08 - "higher testosterone levels in midlife have been linked to better preservation of tissue in some parts of the brain. And in older men, higher testosterone levels have been associated with better performance on cognitive tests ... Three studies linked impaired performance on cognitive tests with androgen deprivation therapy"
• Stiff Arteries May Stifle Aging Mind - WebMD, 11/20/07 - "A new study links stiffer arteries to lower memory and concentration test scores as adults age"
• Cholesterol Drugs May Reduce Dementia & Parkinson's Risk - Physician's Weekly Article, 10/15/07 - "there appears to be a strong reduction in dementia and Parkinson’s disease incidence attributed to the use of simvastatin, a cholesterol lowering drug. The researchers also observed a moderate reduction in incidence of these conditions with atorvastatin, another cholesterol-lowering drug"
• Higher serum free testosterone is associated with better cognitive function in older men, while total testosterone is not. The Health In Men Study - Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2007 Sep 20 - "In community-dwelling older men, serum free testosterone >/= 210 pmol/l is associated with better cognitive performance"
• ACE Inhibitors May Protect Against Mental Decline - Clinical Psychiatry News, 8/07 - "The group of patients on an antihypertensive other than an ACE inhibitor had a mean decline in exam scores of 0.64 points per year. Those on an ACE inhibitor had a mean decline of 0.38 points per year ... It is thought that some ACE inhibitors protect from dementia and mental decline by decreasing oxidative stress and inflammation in the brain"
• Sleep Strengthens Your Memory - Science Daily, 4/24/07
• Strengthen Memory While You Sleep - WebMD, 4/24/07
• High-normal Uric Acid Linked With Mild Cognitive Impairment In The Elderly - Science Daily, 1/3/07 - "older people with serum (blood) uric-acid levels in the high end of the normal range are more likely to process information slowly and experience failures of verbal and working memory ... Higher levels of uric acid are linked with known risk factors for dementia, including high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, Type 2 diabetes and the "metabolic syndrome" of abdominal obesity and insulin resistance"
• Virus may affect memory years later - MSNBC, 10/23/06 - "A family of viruses that cause a range of ills from the common cold to polio may be able to infect the brain and cause steady damage"
• Is Cholesterol a Memory Thief? - Geriatrics and Aging, Volume 9, Number 7, JulyAugust 2006, Pages 484-490 - "Emerging data indicate that circulating cholesterol levels may influence progression of the dementing disorder. A recent pilot, proof-of-concept, placebo-controlled clinical trial suggests that the cholesterol-lowering medication atorva-statin provides benefit in treating mild-to-moderate AD. Although not approved for the treatment of AD, statin therapy might be considered in the setting of elevated cholesterol levels--even when LDL/HDL ratios are acceptable"
• Insulin Sensitizers Cut Cognitive Decline in AD - Clinical Psychiatry News, 4/06 - "There is a critical relationship between insulin resistance and key aspects of brain function ... patients taking rosiglitazone performed significantly better than those taking placebo on a delayed memory task (the Buschke Selective Reminding Test)" - See OffshoreRx1.com.
• Less Cognitive Impairment Seen in Women Taking Drug for Osteoporosis - Doctor's Guide, 4/7/05 - "The drug, raloxifene, modulates the activity of the hormone estrogen ... the 120 mg dose conferred a 33% lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment when compared with the 60 mg dose and with placebo. The 60 mg dose offered no apparent prevention of cognitive impairment. While researchers also observed a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, that reduction was of borderline statistical significance"
• Homocysteine and cognitive function - Medscape, 3/25/05 - "Higher homocysteine levels were associated with worse function across a broad range of cognitive domains, and the magnitude of the associations was large. The data suggest that homocysteine may be a potentially important modifiable cause of cognitive dysfunction"
• Healthy Midlife Heart Lowers Dementia Risk - WebMD, 1/24/05 - "Middle-aged people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes are 20%-40% more likely to develop dementia in old age"
• CV Risk Factors May Be Bad for Brain, as Well as Heart - Clinical Psychiatry News, 12/04 - "Dyslipidemia, obesity, and hypertension aren't just bad for the heart. They're bad for the brain, too ... women in the highest versus the lowest quintiles for HDL were 2 years younger. … Simple lifestyle changes that increase HDL cholesterol may have a substantial health impact"
• Metabolic Syndrome Can Reduce Mental Function - WebMD, 11/9/04 - "those with metabolic syndrome were 20% more likely to develop a decline in mental function compared with a group of elderly people without metabolic syndrome"
• Metabolic Syndrome Associated with Cognitive Decline in Elderly Persons - Doctor's Guide, 11/9/04 - "persons with the metabolic syndrome (n = 1016) were 20 percent more likely to develop cognitive impairment ... Those with both metabolic syndrome and high inflammation (n = 348) were 66 percent more likely to have cognitive impairment than those without the metabolic syndrome"
• High-fat Diets Hammer Memory, More Than A Waistline Worry - Science Daily, 11/3/04 - "the mice on the high-fat and high-fat, high-sugar diets could not learn and remember the maze as well as those on the other diets"
• Low Testosterone Linked With Memory Loss - WebMD, 10/27/04
• Testosterone Deprivation Makes Men Forget - Science Daily, 10/22/04 - "word retention drops sharply after only two minutes among men undergoing testosterone deprivation therapy"
• Specific Type of Cognition Improves with Hormone Replacement in Postmenopausal Women - Doctor's Guide, 6/24/03 - "The oestrogen therapy had no effect on overall verbal recall; however, it reduced perseverative errors -- the repetition of words already recalled -- by almost half. Perseveration is an important part of verbal learning, representing either inability to inhibit a previously stated response or true forgetting that a response was already given"
• Tests that Measure Learning and Recall Most Likely to Predict Mild Cognitive Impairment - Doctor's Guide, 4/8/03
• Total Recall - The future of memory. By David Plotz - MSNBC, 3/11/03
• Alzheimer's, Dementia Not Inevitable With Age - WebMD, 2/11/03 - "In their study, fully one-half of the 111 nonagenarians -- people 90-99 years old -- had no signs of clinically measurable memory loss, while another 12% had only mild cognitive impairment. Only about one in three had dementia ... One of the things that struck me is that most of the people we studied who lived into their 90s -- whether or not they had dementia -- had at least one parent who lived into their 80s or 90s ... And while some were obese, the vast majority of the study participants and those who had no signs of memory loss were thin"
• High Blood Sugar Linked To Lost Memory - Intelihealth, 2/4/03
• Brain Feedback May Improve Memory - WebMD, 1/27/03
• Can a Good Memory Be Inherited? - WebMD, 1/24/03
• Statin Therapy Does Not Slow Cognitive Decline - Clinical Psychiatry News, 1/03 - "pravastatin showed no effect at all on cognition in PROSPER. Similarly, simvastatin exerted no impact upon cognitive decline in the earlier 20,536-patient randomized double-blind Heart Protection Study ... It might be better to look at the use of antihypertensives in the elderly to prevent cognitive decline” based upon accumulating extremely promising clinical trials data on that score ... Prior statin trials in middle-aged patients have shown stroke prevention but not until after 5-6 years of treatment"
• Mild Cognitive Impairment Is Widespread - Clinical Psychiatry News, 11/02
• Forgetfulness Is No Laughing Matter - WebMD, 9/27/02
• Scientists Improve Memory In Mice By Turning Off Enzyme [PP1] - Intelihealth, 8/28/02
• Mini-Mental Test Helps Spot Alzheimer's Versus Dementia With Lewy Bodies - Doctor's Guide, 6/12/02
• Statins May Preserve Brain Power - WebMD, 3/18/02 - "The study also found that statin use was associated with a lower risk of memory problems or dementia, regardless of total cholesterol level. The authors say more research is needed to understand exactly how statins seem to protect the brain, but they suspect that the drugs may work by improving muscle function and reducing inflammation"
• Endogenous Estradiol in Elderly Individuals: Cognitive and Noncognitive Associations - Archives of Neurology, 3/02 - "Lower E2 [estradiol] levels are correlated with poor cognitive, behavioral, and functional status in older individuals"
• Moderate Alcohol Use By Seniors May Curb Cognitive Impairment - Doctor's Guide, 1/15/02
• Estrogen Patch May Improve Memory for Women with Alzheimer's - Doctor's Guide, 8/27/01
• Estrogen Patch Found to Improve Memory - WebMD, 8/27/01 - "after two months of wearing an estrogen patch, postmenopausal women with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease showed some improvement in both memory and thinking ability"
• Older Women Who Keep Active Have Lower Risk for Mental Decline - WebMD, 5/9/01 - "women who walked the most were the least likely to suffer a decline in thought processes and that there was a direct relationship between activity and mental function: As the amount of walking or calories burned per week rose, the risk for loss of mental abilities declined"
• New Alzheimer Guidelines Issued - Intelihealth, 5/8/01 - "People diagnosed with persistent short-term memory loss have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and should be aggressively monitored by their physicians"
• Cholesterol drug may prevent Alzheimer's - CNN, 5/1/01 - "What we found was that patients taking statins have a 60 to 70 percent reduction in the risk of Alzheimer's disease"
• Decreased Memory After Age 60 Linked To High Homocysteine Levels - Doctor's Guide, 4/26/01 - "High circulating levels of homocysteine, especially with increasing age, have been associated with cognitive impairment. In recent studies, Alzheimer disease and dementia after multiple strokes have been linked to extremely high serum homocysteine concentrations ... The folate status of the participants was an important consideration because folate has been shown to significantly modify homocysteine levels"
• Researchers Find Link For Estrogen's Power To Protect The Brain - Intelihealth, 4/12/01 - "Dubal used female rats whose ovaries were surgically removed - thereby eliminating estradiol production - and induced strokes in the animals by blocking an artery carrying blood to the brain. The rats given supplemental estrogen had far less brain damage than those from whom the hormone supplement was withheld"
• Don't Chalk Forgetfulness Up to Normal Aging, Memory Loss May Really Be a Sign of Early Alzheimer's - WebMD, 3/14/01 - "older people who have repeated memory lapses may actually have an early form of Alzheimer's disease, even if they do not have the dementia characteristic of the disease"
• Scientists Can Make Mice Smarter -- Are We Next? - WebMD, 3/8/01 - "A complex chain of enzymes in the brain normally limits the amount of memories that can be stored ... Removing these inhibitory constraints can enhance ... learning and can lead to an improvement in certain aspects of memory storage ... Combined with earlier studies, our work clearly shows that calcineurin is involved in learning and memory ... behavioral changes related to learning involve strengthening the connections between nerve cells rather than changing the way nerve cells are hard-wired together"