STRESS: TAKES TOLL ON COGNITIVE RESERVE

-

 

STRESS: TAKES TOLL ON COGNITIVE RESERVE


While mentally stimulating activities and life experiences can improve cognition in patients with memory clinic diagnoses, stress undermines this beneficial relationship, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.

Researchers in the late 1980s found that some individuals who showed no apparent symptoms of dementia during their lifetime had brain changes consistent with an advanced stage of Alzheimer's disease. It has been postulated that so-called cognitive reserve might account for this differential protective effect in individuals.

Cognitively stimulating and enriching life experiences and behaviors, such as higher educational attainment, complex jobs, continued physical and leisure activities, and healthy social interactions, help build cognitive reserve. However, high or persistent stress levels are associated with reduced social interactions, an impaired ability to engage in leisure and physical activities, and an increased risk of dementia.

Researchers from Karolinska Institute have investigated the relationship between cognitive reserve, cognition, and biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease in 113 participants from the memory clinic at Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, Sweden. They also examined how this association is modified by physiological stress (cortisol levels in saliva) and psychological stress (perceived stress).

Greater cognitive reserve was found to improve cognition; however, interestingly, physiological stress appeared to weaken this association.

"These results might have clinical implications as an expanding body of research suggests that mindfulness exercises and meditation may reduce cortisol levels and improve cognition," says the study's lead author, Manasa Shanta Yerramalla, a researcher at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet. "Different stress management strategies coulcomplementto existing lifestyle interventions in Alzheimer's prevention."

The small sample size of participants reduces the possibility of drawing robust conclusions, but the results are generally applicable to similar patient groups. Moreover, since stress disrupts sleep, which in turn disrupts cognition, the researchers controlled for sleeping medications; however, they did not consider other aspects of sleep that might also impair cognition.

"We will continue to study the association between stress and sleeping disorders and how it affects the cognitive reserve in memory clinic patients," says Dr Yerramalla.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

B12 MAY HELP PREVENT ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE.

-
Image
  B12 MAY HELP PREVENT ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE. Worms don't wiggle when they have Alzheimer's disease. Yet something helped worms with the disease hold onto their wiggle in Professor Jessica Tanis's lab at the University of Delaware. In solving the mystery, Tanis and her team have yielded new clues into the potential impact of diet on Alzheimer's, the dreaded degenerative brain disease afflicting more than 6 million Americans. A few years ago, Tanis and her team began investigating factors affecting the onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease. They were doing genetic research with  C. elegans , a tiny soil-dwelling worm subject of numerous studies. Expression of amyloid-beta, a toxic protein implicated in Alzheimer's disease, paralyzes worms within 36 hours of reaching adulthood. While the worms in one petri dish in Tanis's lab were rendered completely immobile, the worms of the same age in the adjacent petri dish still had their wiggle, documented as ...
Read more

EXTREME HEAT MAY NEGATIVELY IMPACT COGNITIVE HEALTH

-
Image
  EXTREME HEAT MAY NEGATIVELY IMPACT COGNITIVE HEALTH          July 2023 was the hottest month, with cities like Phoenix experiencing record-breaking heat waves for weeks. A new study finds that ongoing extreme heat can worsen cognitive decline among vulnerable groups -- particularly Black older adults and those living in poor neighborhoods. "Our research finds that cumulative exposure to extreme heat can undermine cognitive health, but it does so unequally across the population," said Eunyoung Choi, a postdoctoral associate at the NYU School of Global Public Health and the first author of the study, published in the  Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health . Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S., claiming more lives each year than hurricanes, tornadoes, and lightning combined. Young children and older adults are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Recent stud...
Read more

Diabetes drugs may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s.

-
Image
    Diabetes drugs may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. The study finds people taking the drugs have fewer biomarkers, slower cognitive decline. People taking certain drugs to lower blood sugar for type 2 diabetes had less amyloid in the brain, a biomarker of Alzheimer's disease compared to people with type 2 diabetes who are not taking the drugs and those without diabetes. The new study, published in the August 11, 2021, online issue of  Neurology , the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, also found people taking these drugs, called dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors, showed slower cognitive decline than people in the other two groups. In people with type 2 diabetes, the body no longer efficiently uses insulin to control blood sugar. Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors, also known as gliptins, can be prescribed when other diabetes drugs do not work. They help control blood sugar when combined with diet and exercise. "People with diabetes have been shown to ...
Read more