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Data from 196,383 older adults (60+; mean age 64) in the UK Biobank found that a healthy lifestyle was associated with lower dementia risk regardless of genes.

Both an unhealthy lifestyle and high genetic risk were associated with higher dementia risk.

A very long-running study, in which 800 Swedish women (aged 38-54) were followed for 44 years, found that women with a high level of mental activities in midlife were 46% less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and 34% less likely to develop dementia overall, compared with women with the low level of mental activities. Women who were physically active were 52% less likely to develop dementia with cerebrovascular disease and 56% less likely to develop mixed dementia, compared with women who were inactive.

Various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer's, involve brain network problems. Brain regions are not coordinating as well as they should;

Lowering blood pressure prevents worsening brain damage in elderly

Optimal levels of cardiovascular health in older age associated with lower dementia risk

A French study involving 6,626 older adults (65+) found that having optimal levels in more measures of cardiovascular health (nonsmoking, weight, diet, physical activity, cholesterol, blood glucose and blood pressure) was associated with lower dementia risk and slower rates of cognitive decline. Dementia risk and rates of cognitive decline lowered with each additional metric at the recommended optimal level.

Although first reported in 1816, the fact that the brain is surrounded by lymphatic vessels, which connect the brain and the immune system, was only rediscovered in 2015.

A study involving 54 older adults (55-80), who possessed at least one risk factor for a stroke, found that those with

Perivascular spaces are fluid-filled spaces around the cerebral small vessels, commonly seen on brain scans in older adults. They have been thought to be harmless, but a new study challenges this belief.

Data from 3,105 older adults (65+) who had either heart surgery or cardiac catheterization has found that those who had heart surgery didn’t experience much greater cognitive decline compared with those who had the much less invasive, catheter-based procedure.

Two years after the surgery, surgery participants showed a greater amount of decline equal to only 4.6 months of cognitive aging compared with those undergoing catheterization.

Data from more than 14,265 people older adults (51+) multiple times over a decade or more through the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study has found that people with higher “multimorbidity scores” showed much faster cognitive decline than those with lower scores, even though most of the chronic conditions included in the index had no direct relationship with brain health. The higher the score, the faster the decline.

Large study shows level of beneficial alcohol consumption much lower than thought

A UK study using data from 13,342 middle-aged and older adults (40-73) has found that having up to one standard unit of alcohol a day improved reaction time, but more than that amount harmed cognitive performance. The effect was more pronounced in older adults.

How alcohol increases Alzheimer's risk

A cell-culture study using rodent microglia found that some of the genes affected by alcohol and inflammation are also implicated in processes that clear amyloid beta, suggesting that alcohol may impede the clearance of amyloid beta in the brain.

Data from over 5,000 individuals found that a measure of belly fat (waist:hip ratio) was associated with reduced cognitive function in older Irish adults (60+). Body mass index (BMI), however, was found to protect cognitive function.

BMI is a crude measure of body fat and cannot differentiate between fat and muscle — the muscle component is likely to be the protective factor.

A diet containing compounds found in green tea and carrots reversed Alzheimer's-like symptoms in mice genetically programmed to develop the disease. The two compounds were EGCG (epigallocatechin-3-gallate), a key ingredient in green tea, and FA (ferulic acid), which is found in carrots, tomatoes, rice, wheat and oats.

A mouse study helps explain why vitamin D is so important for cognition. After 20 weeks of no vitamin D, the healthy adult mice showed a significant decline in their ability to remember and learn. They also showed a pronounced reduction in perineuronal nets in the

A study involving 116 healthy older adults (65-75) has found that higher levels of several key nutrients in the blood were associated with more efficient brain connectivity and better cognitive performance. In fact, the findings suggest that the level of nutrients governs the strength of the association between functional brain network efficiency and cognitive performance.

A long-running study involving 8225 adults found that self-reported diet during midlife (mean age 50) was not significantly associated with subsequent risk for dementia.

Dietary intake was assessed in 1991-1993, 1997-1999, and 2002-2004, with follow-up for incident dementia until March 31, 2017. Diet quality was assessed using the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), an 11-component diet quality score (score range, 0-110), with higher scores indicating a healthier diet.

Dietary choline linked to reduced dementia risk & better cognition

Data from a large, long-running Finnish study, involving some 2,500 men aged 42-60, has found that dietary intake of phosphatidylcholine was associated with a reduced risk of dementia (the risk was 28% lower in men with the highest intake compared to the lowest). Men with the highest intake of dietary phosphatidylcholine also excelled in tests measuring their memory and linguistic abilities.

The key sources of phosphatidylcholine in the study population's diet were eggs (39%) and meat (37%).

High LDL linked to

A mouse study has found that canola oil in the diet was associated with worsened memory, worsened learning ability, and weight gain in Alzheimer's mice.

Canola oil-treated animals also had greatly reduced levels of amyloid beta 1-40 (the “good” version), leading to more amyloid-beta plaques (made from amyloid beta 1-42), and a significant decrease in synapses.

The mice were given the equivalent of about two tablespoons of canola oil daily. The mice began their enriched diet at 6 months of age, before they developed any signs of Alzheimer's.

I rarely report on drugs, but because I do have a number of early reports on the four drugs approved for use with Alzheimer’s, I wanted to provide this update.

A small study comparing 38 younger adults (average age 22) and 39 older adults (average age 68) found that the older adults were less able to recognize when they made errors.

The simple test involved looking away from a circle that appeared in a box on one side of a computer screen. It’s hard not to look at something that’s just appeared, and each time the participant glanced at the circle before shifting their gaze, they were asked whether they had made an error. They were then asked to rate how sure they were of their answer.

Can computer use, crafts and games slow or prevent age-related memory loss?

Americans with a college education live longer without dementia and Alzheimer's

Data from the large, long-running U.S. Health and Retirement Study found that healthy cognition characterized most of the people with at least a college education into their late 80s, while those who didn’t complete high school had good cognition up until their 70s.

Socially active 60-year-olds face lower dementia risk

Data from the Whitehall II study, tracking 10,228 participants for 30 years, found that increased social contact at age 60 is associated with a significantly lower risk of developing dementia later in life. Someone who saw friends almost daily at age 60 was 12% less likely to develop dementia than someone who only saw one or two friends every few months.

Stressors in middle age linked to cognitive decline in older women

Data from some 900 older adults has linked stressful life experiences among middle-aged women, but not men, to greater memory decline in later life.

Previous research has found that the effect of age on the stress response is three times greater in women than in men.

A study involving more than 2,500 older adults (65+) found that the rate of worsening vision was associated with the rate of cognitive decline. More importantly, vision has a stronger influence on cognition than the reverse.

The study finding suggests maintaining good vision through the prevention and treatment of vision disorders in old persons may be a strategy to lessen age-related cognitive changes.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/jn-via062718.php

Hearing loss linked to increased dementia risk

A Taiwanese study involving 16,270 adults, of whom half had newly diagnosed hearing loss, found that those with hearing loss had a higher risk of dementia, particularly among those aged 45-64. Six comorbidities (cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, anxiety, depression, alcohol-related illnesses, and head injury) were also significantly associated with a higher dementia risk.

Among the study participants, 1,868 developed dementia during the 13-year study period.

Chronic insomnia linked to memory problems

Data from 28,485 older Canadians (45+) found that those with chronic insomnia performed significantly worse on cognitive tests than those who had symptoms of insomnia without any noticable impact on their daytime functioning and those with normal sleep quality. The main type of memory affected was declarative memory (memory of concepts, events and facts).

Disrupted sleep in one's 50s, 60s raises Alzheimer's risk

A study involving 95 healthy older adults found that adults reporting a decline in sleep quality in their 40s and 50s had more amyloid-beta in their brains later in life, while those reporting poorer sleep in their 50s and 60s had more tau tangles. Those with high levels of tau protein were more likely to lack the synchronized brain waves during deep NREM sleep that are associated with a good night's sleep, and the more tau protein, the less synchronized these brain waves were.

Periodontitis raises dementia risk

A 10-year South Korean study using data from 262,349 older adults (50+) has found that those with chronic periodontitis had a 6% higher risk for dementia than did people without periodontitis. This connection was true despite behaviors such as smoking, consuming alcohol, and remaining physically active.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/ags-pmr031519.php

Brain scans from over 4,000 people, across the age range (9 months to 94 years) and including 1,385 Alzheimer's patients, has revealed an early divergence between those who go on to develop Alzheimer’s and those who age normally. This divergence is seen in early atrophy of the

A fruitfly study suggests that losing neurons is not necessarily a bad thing. The study used fruitflies genetically engineered to express human amyloid-beta proteins in their brains. When neuronal death was blocked, the flies developed even worse memory problems, worse motor coordination problems, died earlier and their brain degenerated faster.

Mobile game detects Alzheimer's risk

A specially designed mobile phone game called Sea Hero Quest has found that gaming data can distinguish between those people who are genetically at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease ond those who are not. The game is designed to test spatial navigation skills — one of the first cognitive areas affected in Alzheimer's.

A standard memory and thinking test could not distinguish between the risk and non-risk groups.

Memory tests predict brain atrophy and Alzheimer's disease

Data from the Harvard Aging Brain Study found that higher amyloid beta levels were associated with increasing anxiety symptoms in cognitively normal older adults. The results suggest that worsening anxious-depressive symptoms may be an early predictor of elevated amyloid beta levels.

The study involved 270 cognitively healthy older adults (62-90). For five years, participants were annually assessed for depression, apathy-anhedonia, dysphoria, and anxiety.

A study has shown new technology can quickly and non-invasively detect reduced blood capillaries in the back of the eye that are an early indication of Alzheimer's. It also shows that these signs can help distinguish between Alzheimer's and

A very long-running study involving 290 people at risk of Alzheimer's has found that, in those 81 people who developed

A long-term study of nearly 3,000 older adults (57-85) has found that those who couldn’t identify at least four out of five common odors were more than twice as likely as those with a normal sense of smell to develop dementia within five years.

Of the participants, some 14% could name just three out of five, 5% could identify only two scents, 2% just one, and 1% couldn’t identify a single smell.

Alzheimer's disease is associated with abnormalities in the vast network of blood vessels in the brain, but it hasn’t been known how this affects cognition. A study has now shown that a blood-clotting protein called fibrinogen plays a part.

The study found that fibrinogen, after leaking from the blood into the brain, activates the brain's immune cells and triggers them to destroy synapses, which are critical for neuronal communication.

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