vitamin-D

Large study finds that placebo works as well as vitamin D supplements to prevent depression and improve mood

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Large Study Con­firms Vit­a­min D Does Not Reduce Risk of Depres­sion in Adults (Mass Gen­er­al press release):

Vit­a­min D sup­ple­men­ta­tion does not pro­tect against depres­sion in mid­dle-age or old­er adult­hood accord­ing results from one of the largest ever stud­ies of its kind … “There was no sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit from the sup­ple­ment for this pur­pose. It did not pre­vent depres­sion or improve mood,” says Olivia I. Okereke, MD, MS, of the Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (MGH) Psy­chi­a­try Department.

[Read more…] about Large study finds that place­bo works as well as vit­a­min D sup­ple­ments to pre­vent depres­sion and improve mood

Warning: Vitamin D supplements may do more cognitive harm than good

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vitaminDNo Link Between Vit­a­min D and Cog­ni­tion, Brain Pathol­o­gy (Med­scape):

“Enthu­si­asm for tak­ing vit­a­min D to pro­mote brain health has tak­en a knock after 2 stud­ies in the same pop­u­la­tion have found no asso­ci­a­tion between vit­a­min D lev­els and cog­ni­tion [Read more…] about Warn­ing: Vit­a­min D sup­ple­ments may do more cog­ni­tive harm than good

February Update: Retooling Brain Health for the 21st Century

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Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary edi­tion of Sharp­Brains month­ly eNewslet­ter:

First Report of the Coun­cil on the Age­ing Soci­ety: Glob­al Pol­i­cy jour­nal pub­lish­es the full Pol­i­cy Prin­ci­ples and call to action out­lined by the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cil on the Age­ing Soci­ety, an ini­tia­tive run by the World Eco­nomic Forum which our CEO Alvaro Fer­nan­dez was hon­ored to join in 2008.

Love Your Brain:  Did you remem­ber to love your brain on St. Valen­tine’s Day? Let Dr. Mar­i­an Dia­mond show why we bet­ter do so –and how.

Assessments

Who will Ben­e­fit From Train­ing?  New research shows that mea­sur­ing brain activ­i­ty pat­terns can pre­dict who may ben­e­fit most from tran­ing inter­ven­tions ‑and who may not. Please note that the Kramer lab involved in this research is now offer­ing a post­doc­tor­al fellowship.

A Quick Test to Detect Ath­letes’ Con­cus­sions:  This new test can be per­formed at the side­line of sport­ing events to help detect con­cus­sions by look­ing at dif­fer­ent types of eye movements.

The Best Way to Learn: Tak­ing a test in which you recall what you have read seems to be a much bet­ter strat­e­gy than either study­ing the mate­r­ial repeat­edly or draw­ing detailed dia­grams of what you are learning.

Interventions

Brain Train­ing Games for Seniors: Don­al O’Brien, from Queens Uni­ver­si­ty at Belfast, tells us about what moti­vates seniors to use a brain train­ing app.

Do Cross­word Puz­zles Help to Coun­ter­act the Aging Process? If so, Which Ones and How? Researcher Nick Almond com­pares the stim­u­la­tion poten­tial of two dif­fer­ent types of cross­words: gen­er­al knowl­edge and cryptic.

Vit­a­min D and Cog­ni­tive Decline: This study sup­ports that patients with vit­a­min D defi­ciency show an increased risk of cog­ni­tive decline.

Baby Sleeps and Brain Devel­op­ment: How much sleep a 12 month old baby gets can influ­ence the devel­op­ment of his/her exec­u­tive functions.

PTSD: Can we Dis­rupt the Recon­sol­i­da­tion of Trau­mat­ic Mem­o­ries? A dis­cus­sion of the dif­fer­ent tech­niques used/ under research that can help PTSD patients.

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Books and Summit Updates

Visu­al Illu­sions in Art and Sci­ence: These sur­pris­ing clas­sic illu­sions illus­trate how art and mag­ic can help sci­ence in under­tans­ing how we per­ceive the world around us.

2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Agen­da: You can now view the lat­est Agen­da for the whole Sum­mit and a 3‑minute clip to learn how the Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Cen­tu­ry (March 30th — April 1st) will work.

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Brain Teaser


Mea­sure your Men­tal Speed and Flex­i­bil­i­ty: Final­ly, let us chal­lenge you to try this fun and inter­ac­tive ver­sion of the famous Stroop test.

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?