Lifeboat Foundation

People who eat more foods with omega-3 fatty acids in midlife may have superior thinking skills and even better brain structure than people who eat few foods containing the fatty acids. This is according to an exploratory study that was recently published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fish such as salmon, sardines, lake trout, and albacore tuna. They are also found in dietary supplements as well as foods that are fortified with the fatty acids.

“If people could improve their cognitive resilience and potentially ward off dementia with some simple changes to their diet, that could have a large impact on public health.” —

“Improving our diet is one way to promote our brain health,” said study author Claudia L. Satizabal, PhD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “If people could improve their cognitive resilience and potentially ward off dementia with some simple changes to their diet, that could have a large impact on public health. Even better, our study suggests that even modest consumption of omega-3 may be enough to preserve brain function. This is in line with the current American Heart Association dietary guidelines to consume at least two servings of fish per week to improve cardiovascular health.”

The new research saw scientists follow 100,000 participants in the UK Biobank national cohort.

Smartphones could soon be used to predict populations’ mortality rates, according to a press release by PLOS Digital Health.

Previous studies have used measures of physical fitness, including walk tests and self-reported walk pace, to predict individual mortality risk. Now scientists are taking it a step further.

Continue reading “Smartphones can be used to predict mortality rates” »

Sound-diffracting walls and rubberised asphalt ingredients tackle the major environmental concern of noise pollution from traffic.

In cities across the European Union, noise is a significant health hazard along with air pollution. Efforts are under way to reduce a major source of both: traffic.

Noise is the number-two environmental source of health troubles, after air pollution, according to the United Nations World Health Organization.

Over the last several decades, obesity has rapidly grown to affect more than 2 billion people, making it one of the biggest contributors to poor health globally. Many individuals still have trouble losing weight despite decades of study on diet and exercise regimens. Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and affiliated institutions now believe they understand why, and they argue that the emphasis should be shifted from treating obesity to preventing it.

The research team reports in the journal Science Advances that early-life molecular processes of brain development are likely a major determinant of obesity risk. Previous large human studies have shown that the genes most strongly associated with obesity are expressed in the developing brain. This most recent study in mice focused on epigenetic development. Epigenetics is a molecular bookmarking system that regulates whether genes are utilized or not in certain cell types.

“Decades of research in humans and animal models have shown that environmental influences during critical periods of development have a major long-term impact on health and disease,” said corresponding author Dr. Robert Waterland, professor of pediatrics-nutrition and a member of the USDA Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor. “Body weight regulation is very sensitive to such ‘developmental programming,’ but exactly how this works remains unknown.”

A drug has been identified by researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) that replicates the benefits of exercise on mice’s bones and muscles.

You can look and feel better by keeping up a regular exercise schedule, but did you know that exercise also supports bone and muscle health? Locomotor fragility, which affects people who are unable to exercise, causes the muscles and bones to deteriorate. Recently, Japanese researchers discovered a new drug that, by producing effects comparable to those of exercise, may help treat locomotor frailty.

Physical inactivity can result in a weakening of the muscles (known as sarcopenia) and bones (known as osteoporosis). Exercise dispels this frailty by boosting muscular strength and suppressing bone resorption while simultaneously promoting bone formation. Exercise therapy, however, cannot be used in every clinical situation. When patients have dementia, cerebrovascular disease, or are already bedridden, drug therapy may be very helpful for treating sarcopenia and osteoporosis. However, there is no one drug that targets both tissues at the same time.

Gas stoves in California homes are leaking cancer-causing benzene, researchers found in a new study published on Thursday, though they say more research is needed to understand how many homes have leaks.

In the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology on Thursday, researchers also estimated that over 4 tons of benzene per year are being leaked into the atmosphere from outdoor pipes that deliver the gas to buildings around California — the equivalent to the benzene emissions from nearly 60,000 vehicles. And those emissions are unaccounted for by the state.

The researchers collected samples of gas from 159 homes in different regions of California and measured to see what types of gases were being emitted into homes when stoves were off. They found that all of the samples they tested had hazardous air pollutants, like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX), all of which can have adverse health effects in humans with chronic exposure or acute exposure in larger amounts.

Harnessing The Power Of Science & Innovation For All — Dr. Anna Laura Ross, Ph.D., Unit Head for Emerging Technologies, Research Prioritization and Support, Science Division, WHO.

Dr. Anna Laura Ross, Ph.D. is the Unit Head for Emerging Technologies, Research Prioritization and Support, in the World Health Organization (WHO) Science Division (https://www.who.int/our-work/science-division), located in Geneva, as well as the Head of the WHO Science Council Secretariat.

Continue reading “Dr Anna Laura Ross PhD — Science Division, WHO — Harnessing Power Of Science & Innovation For All” »

Summary: A new theory suggests glial cells, specifically astrocytes, play a key role in cognitive processing.

Source: University Health Network.

A team of scientists from the Krembil Brain Institute, part of the University Health Network in Toronto, and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has developed the first computer model predicting the role of cortical glial cells in cognition.

798 views, 6 likes, 1 comments, 18 shares, Facebook Reels from The Neuro-Network.