Debunking the “chemical imbalance” theory yet not throwing out the antidepressant baby with the bathwater

By The Conversation | August 3, 2022

A recent study found incon­sis­tent evi­dence link­ing the neu­ro­trans­mit­ter sero­tonin to depres­sion. In an arti­cle for The Con­ver­sa­tion, the authors of the study con­clud­ed that it is impos­si­ble to say that tak­ing SSRI anti­de­pres­sants is worth­while. But is it safe to con­clude that sero­tonin is not involved in depres­sion or that mod­ern anti­de­pres­sants aren’t helpful…

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10-year study finds that the higher the blood sugar level, the faster the cognitive decline over time — regardless of diabetic status

By SharpBrains | January 29, 2018

___ The Star­tling Link Between Sug­ar and Alzheimer’s (The Atlantic): “A lon­gi­tu­di­nal study, pub­lished Thurs­day in the jour­nal Dia­betolo­gia, fol­lowed 5,189 peo­ple over 10 years and found that peo­ple with high blood sug­ar had a faster rate of cog­ni­tive decline than those with nor­mal blood sugar—whether or not their blood-sug­­ar lev­el tech­ni­cal­ly made them diabetic.…

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Beware alarmist medical advertising about Alzheimer’s disease: The story of one “Brain Health Quiz”

By SharpBrains | September 26, 2017

______________________________ Is a Dubi­ous ‘Brain Health Quiz’ Stok­ing Alzheimer’s Anx­i­ety to Lure Patients? (Undark): “…Alarmist med­ical adver­tis­ing is pret­ty fun­ny on tele­vi­sion, but it can be far more trou­bling in real life. Although I’ve nev­er been alert­ed to impend­ing death, I recent­ly received an adver­tise­ment from my own trust­ed health care provider warn­ing that I…

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

By SharpBrains | March 13, 2015

  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…

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Alzheimer’s Disease: New Survey and Research Study on Awareness, Testing and Prevention

By Alvaro Fernandez | July 21, 2011 |

Very inter­est­ing new data rein­forc­ing two main themes we have been ana­lyz­ing for a while: 1) We bet­ter start pay­ing seri­ous atten­tion (and R&D dol­lars) to lifestyle-based and non-inva­­sive cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al health inter­ven­tions, which are most­ly ignored in favor of inva­sive, drug-based options 2) Inter­ven­tions will need to be per­son­al­ized. The study below ana­lyzes data…

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