PROTIME-FITNESS HOLISTIC HEALTH AND WELLNESS

  MORE EVIDENCE THAT EXERCISING PROTECTS THE BRAIN Enhanced nerve transmission is seen in older adults who remain active. When elderly people stay active, their brains have more of a class of proteins that enhance the connections between neurons to maintain healthy cognition, a UC San Francisco study has found. This protective impact was found even in people whose brains at autopsy were riddled with toxic proteins associated with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. "Our work is the first that uses human data to show that synaptic protein regulation is related to physical activity and may drive the beneficial cognitive outcomes we see," said Kaitlin Casaletto, Ph.D., an assistant professor of neurology and lead author on the study, which appears in the January 7 issue of  Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association . The beneficial effects of physical activity on cognition have been shown in mice but have been much harder to

  Brain cell damage blood markers are higher in COVID-19 patients than in Alzheimer's patients. A new study finds that patients hospitalized for COVID-19 had higher levels over the short term of blood proteins known to rise with neurological damage than non-COVID-19 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Notably, the current report, published online January 13 in  Alzheimer's & Dementia : The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association was conducted over two months early in the pandemic (March-May 2020). Therefore, determining whether patients with COVID-19 are at increased risk for future Alzheimer's disease or instead recover overtime must await the outcomes of long-term studies. Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the new study found higher levels of seven markers of brain damage (neurodegeneration) in COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms than those without them, and much higher levels in patients that died in the hospital than in