Month: March 2021

Exercise Boosts Blood Flow to Brain, Keeping it Sharp

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News Picture: Exercise Boosts Blood Flow to Brain, Keeping it Sharp

THURSDAY, March 25, 2021 (HealthDay News)

Regular aerobic exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which may help slow mental decline in older adults, a new, small study suggests.

Researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center looked at 70 men and women diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This means there are slight changes to the brain that affect memory, decision-making or reasoning skills. In many cases, MCI progresses to Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.

“This [study] is part of a growing body of evidence linking exercise with brain health,” study leader Rong Zhang, a professor of neurology, said in a UT Southwestern news release. “We’ve shown for the first time in a randomized trial in these older adults that exercise gets more blood flowing to your brain.”

The study participants were ages 55-80. They were randomly assigned to do either a moderate aerobic exercise program or a stretching program for one year. The aerobic exercise program involved three to five exercise sessions a week, each with 30-40 minutes of moderate exercise such as a brisk walk.

Forty-eight volunteers finished the year-long training and returned for follow-up tests. By that time, blood flow to the brain had increased among the 19 participants in the aerobic exercise program, but not among the 29 in the stretching program.

The aerobic group also showed decreased stiffness of blood vessels in their neck. The researchers did not detect changes in these measurements among people who followed the stretching program.

The study didn’t find any significant changes in memory or thinking, but that may be because of the small size or short length of the trial, according to the researchers. They noted that changes to blood flow to the brain could precede mental decline.

They’re now conducting a larger two-year study to further examine the link between exercise and mental decline.

As many as one-fifth of people 65 and older have some degree of mild cognitive impairment. Previous research has shown that lower-than-normal levels of blood flow to the brain, and stiffer blood vessels leading to the brain, are associated with MCI and dementia.

“There is still a lot we don’t know about the effects of exercise on cognitive decline later in life,” study co-author C. Munro Cullum, a professor of clinical psychology, said in the release. “MCI and dementia are likely to be influenced by a complex interplay of many factors, and we think that, at least for some people, exercise is one of those factors.”

The results were published online March 23 in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about mild cognitive impairment.

SOURCE: UT Southwestern, news release, March 23, 2021

Robert Preidt

MedicalNews
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QUESTION

Walking can maintain your body weight and lower many health risks. True or false? See Answer

Furry Friends: 1 in 10 Older U.S. Adults Has Adopted a ‘Pandemic Pet’

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News Picture: Furry Friends: 1 in 10 Older U.S. Adults Has Adopted a 'Pandemic Pet'

WEDNESDAY, March 24, 2021 (HealthDay News)

It was bound to happen: As the pandemic wore on, many older Americans couldn’t resist the urge to bring home a furry friend.

According to a new poll from the University of Michigan, about 10% of all U.S. adults between the ages of 50 and 80 adopted a new pet between March 2020 and January 2021. That number was 16% for people aged 50 to 80 who have a child under 18 at home and 9% for those who don’t have children at home.

“We are delighted to see not just worthy animals get homes, but also to see people get much needed unconditional love as well,” said Wendy Welch, director of communications at the Humane Society of Huron Valley, in Michigan. That shelter has seen record-high increases in adoptions during the pandemic.

“While grandparents have sadly been separated from hugging their grandchildren, furry friends have been OK to snuggle. It’s well documented that pets can help lower our blood pressure, ease anxiety and improve symptoms of depression,” Welch said in a university news release.

“And of particular interest during this isolating pandemic, companion animals certainly stave off the silent killer: loneliness. We are so thankful to the older adults who’ve opened up their hearts and homes to shelter animals during this time,” she added.

Pet ownership was higher among those aged 50 to 64, women, white respondents and those who live in single-family detached homes or are employed. About 12% percent of older adults who are employed said they got a pet since March 2020.

Of those who live alone, the percentage of those having a pet jumped 12 points between the sample reported in a 2019 study and the January 2021 sample, according to the National Poll on Healthy Aging.

Older adults said having a pet helped them enjoy life and reduce stress. It gave them a sense of purpose, kept them on a routine and connected them with other people. For dog owners, it helped them be physically active.

Pets are important companions for older adults living alone, according to the university, especially during the pandemic when many older adults stayed home because of their higher risk of developing severe COVID-19.

The poll data from January is from a sample of just over 2,000 people in the United States. About 59% of people aged 50 to 80 said they are pet owners.

Poll director Dr. Preeti Malani said she also had added a pandemic puppy to her family, which includes a high school-age child studying at home. The family members are first-time pet owners and the puppy has required more attention than they expected, but he has also been a welcome diversion during troubling times.

“Sully has been a great addition,” Malani said. “He makes sure we get outside every day. I’ve also met several other dog owners in the neighborhood.”
 

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on pet ownership and health.

SOURCE: University of Michigan–Michigan Medicine, news release, March 22, 2021

Cara Murez

MedicalNews
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When Animal (Allergies) Attack: Pet Allergy Symptoms, Treatment See Slideshow

Which Americans Live Longest? This Matters Most

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News Picture: Which Americans Live Longest? Education Matters More Now Than Race

MONDAY, March 8, 2021 (HealthDay News)

A four-year college degree is becoming the key to living a longer life in the United States, a new study argues. In fact, education appears to be a more potent factor in determining lifespan now than race, researchers say.

In the study, white and Black people who earned a bachelor’s degree experienced an overall increase in their average adult life expectancy between 2010 and 2018.

On the other hand, people without a college degree tended to have fewer expected years left to them.

This “education gap” in life expectancy more than doubled between 1990 and 2018 for both Black and white Americans — at the same time that race-based differences in life expectancy decreased by 70%, researchers said.

About one-third of Americans have a four-year college degree, and they are living longer and more prosperous lives while the rest face rising death rates and declining prospects, said researcher Angus Deaton, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Center for Health Policy and Economics.

“The importance of having a BA has been increasing, while the importance of the color of your skin seems to be diminishing,” Deaton said. “The gap between Blacks and whites is narrowing, and the gaps between people who do and do not have a four-year college degree are widening.”

Deaton places the blame for the education gap on diminishing economic opportunities afforded to people who don’t go to college.

Wages for people without a BA continue to decline, and automation and globalization have narrowed their career prospects, Deaton said. They also are more vulnerable to suffering a death of despair, either by suicide, drug overdose or addiction-related illness.

“The problem here is not so much that everybody doesn’t have a BA,” Deaton said. “There are lots of people who don’t want to have a four-year college degree, and shouldn’t. What we really need to do is make good jobs for people who don’t have a BA.”

Without a four-year college diploma, it is increasingly difficult to build a meaningful and successful life in the United States, added Deaton, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who retired after 33 years at Princeton University.

For this study, Deaton and his colleagues looked at what they refer to as adult life expectancy, or the life expectancy of people between ages 25 and 75. They combined U.S. federal death certificate data with population survey results to calculate mortality rates.

They found that Black people with a BA tended to have 3.6 more expected years of life in 2018 than those without, compared with 1.4 years in 1990.

A similar advantage held for white people with a college degree. They had 3.5 more expected years of life in 2018 than those who don’t hold a degree. In 1990, the difference was 1.6 years.

The findings were published March 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Margaret Weden, acting director of the RAND Population Research Center, said the narrowing of the racial gap in life expectancy has been observed in prior studies.

“It suggested to me a real impact of the civil rights movement,” Weden said. “In these findings, you see a dramatic uptick for Blacks regardless of education.”

However, the data set used by Deaton to make the education-based observation “has been critiqued pretty robustly in the demographic literature” because it combines information from two different sources that don’t completely jibe, Weden said.

The COVID-19 pandemic likely has shaken up these observations, particularly the narrowing of the racial gap in life expectancy, said Krutika Amin, associate director of the Kaiser Family Foundation Program on the ACA (Affordable Care Act).

COVID has hit U.S. racial and ethnic groups particularly hard, and those deaths are not reflected in this data, Amin said.

On the other hand, the pandemic might have fueled a further increase in the education gap, given that people without a college degree tend to work front-line jobs that carry increased risk of exposure to the coronavirus, Amin said.

“Folks who had higher education were able to work from home, whereas other folks didn’t have that advantage,” Amin said, adding that college-educated people might also have more time to take care of their personal health.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about life expectancy.

SOURCES: Angus Deaton, PhD, professor, University of Southern California Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics; Margaret Weden, PhD, acting director, RAND Population Research Center; Krutika Amin, PhD, associate director, Kaiser Family Foundation Program on the ACA; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 8, 2021

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SLIDESHOW

Exercise Tips for Seniors See Slideshow