prevent-cognitive-decline

AARP: A majority of Americans believe dietary supplements improve brain health, despite the lack of evidence

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New Report Dis­cour­ages Adults From Using Brain Health Sup­ple­ments (Pre­ven­tion):

“This morn­ing, the Glob­al Coun­sel on Brain Health released a report con­clud­ing that dietary sup­ple­ments do not improve brain health or pre­vent cog­ni­tive decline, demen­tia, or Alzheimer’s dis­ease. The report, released by the AARP, flat­ly rec­om­mends that most con­sumers do not take sup­ple­ments for this pur­pose. [Read more…] about AARP: A major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans believe dietary sup­ple­ments improve brain health, despite the lack of evidence

Cognitive Training or Gingko Biloba to prevent cognitive decline and dementia? New comprehensive report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine clarifies priorities for public health and for future research

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Evi­dence Sup­port­ing Three Inter­ven­tions That Might Slow Cog­ni­tive Decline and the Onset of Demen­tia Is Encour­ag­ing but Insuf­fi­cient to Jus­ti­fy a Pub­lic Health Cam­paign Focused on Their Adop­tion (Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, Engi­neer­ing, and Medicine):

“Cog­ni­tive train­ing, blood pres­sure man­age­ment for peo­ple with hyper­ten­sion, and increased phys­i­cal activ­i­ty all show mod­est but incon­clu­sive evi­dence that they can help pre­vent cog­ni­tive decline and demen­tia, but there is insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to sup­port a pub­lic health cam­paign encour­ag­ing their adop­tion, says a new report from the Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, Engi­neer­ing, and Med­i­cine. Addi­tion­al research is need­ed to fur­ther under­stand and gain con­fi­dence in their effec­tive­ness, said the com­mit­tee that con­duct­ed the study and wrote the report [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Train­ing or Gingko Bilo­ba to pre­vent cog­ni­tive decline and demen­tia? New com­pre­hen­sive report by the Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, Engi­neer­ing, and Med­i­cine clar­i­fies pri­or­i­ties for pub­lic health and for future research

Study: Enhancing brain functioning, and preventing cognitive decline, via diet, exercise and cognitive training

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brain life

 

Healthy eat­ing, exer­cise, and brain-train­ing pro­gram results in slow­er men­tal decline for old­er peo­ple (Sci­ence Daily):

“A com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram pro­vid­ing old­er peo­ple at risk of demen­tia with healthy eat­ing guid­ance, exer­cise, brain train­ing, and man­age­ment of meta­bol­ic and vas­cu­lar risk fac­tors appears to slow down cog­ni­tive decline, accord­ing to the first ever ran­domised con­trolled tri­al of its kind, pub­lished in The Lancet.

After two years, [Read more…] about Study: Enhanc­ing brain func­tion­ing, and pre­vent­ing cog­ni­tive decline, via diet, exer­cise and cog­ni­tive training

Update: A Fresh Look at Enhancing Brain & Mental Health Across the Lifespan

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kid brainTime for Sharp­Brains’ May 2013 e‑newsletter, which fea­tures a vari­ety of arti­cles offer­ing a more opti­mistic and evi­dence-based approach to brain and men­tal health than cur­rent practices.

First of all, let us high­light that Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can just pub­lished an excel­lent review of our new book. The author sums it up by say­ing that “…I wish I had read this awe­some guide when I was much younger…I find the emerg­ing field of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty immense­ly excit­ing, and guides like this one are both hope­ful and rea­son­able.” As a read­er points out, the word “awe­some” does not appear often in sci­ence-ori­ent­ed publications…so we are espe­cial­ly proud to see the book mer­it such treatment.

New think­ing:

New sci­ence:

New tools:

That’s it for now. Have a stim­u­lat­ing June!

Vitamin D and Cognitive Decline: What’s the Relationship?

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The role of vit­a­min D in the brain appeared evi­dent in the 1980s when researchers found key pro­teins in the brain involved in vit­a­min D metab­o­lism. A lot of clin­i­cal evi­dence has accu­mu­lat­ed since then sug­gest­ing that low vit­a­min D lev­els may poten­tial­ly result in cog­ni­tive decline. Nonethe­less the results are mixed and not all pre­vi­ous stud­ies have show that low lev­els of vit­a­min D are indeed asso­ci­at­ed with cog­ni­tive decline or dementia.

A 2010 study eval­u­at­ed this ques­tion for the first time by fol­low­ing the same indi­vid­u­als over the years, instead of com­par­ing peo­ple with nor­mal lev­els and peo­ple with low-lev­els of vit­a­min D. This study fol­lowed 858 adults 65 years and old­er over 6‑years. Results showed an increased risk of cog­ni­tive decline in patients with vit­a­min D defi­cien­cy. [Read more…] about Vit­a­min D and Cog­ni­tive Decline: What’s the Relationship?

January Newsletter: Let’s Talk Brain Fitness, Neuroplasticity and Cognitive Reserve

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Let us first announce an upcom­ing Vir­tu­al Book Club Dis­cus­sion focused on Brain Fit­ness, to take place on Mon­day March 14th in hon­or of Brain Aware­ness Week 2011 (March 14–20th). Let’s dis­cuss burn­ing issues togeth­er: Why care about neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and the pos­si­bil­i­ties it offers to enrich our qual­i­ty of life? What does cog­ni­tive reserve research mean to the way we learn, work, play, live? What is Brain Train­ing — and what is not? All the con­ver­sa­tion be vir­tu­al, via social media tools. You can learn more here.

This edi­tion of Sharp­Brains month­ly eNewslet­ter brings many arti­cles on those top­ics. Enjoy! [Read more…] about Jan­u­ary Newslet­ter: Let’s Talk Brain Fit­ness, Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and Cog­ni­tive Reserve