Older people who have a severe vitamin D deficiency have an increased risk of developing dementia, a study has suggested.

In looking at more than 1600 people older than 65, and for 6 years, the researchers found:

All were free from dementia, cardiovascular disease and stroke at the start of the study.

At the end of the study they found the 1,169 with good levels of vitamin D had a one in 10 chance of developing dementia. Seventy were severely deficient - and they had around a one in five risk of dementia.

More research needs to be done, and done looking at the differences between Vitamin D supplements or getting more sunshine by being outside.

And if looking at supplements, making sure they are not synthetics;
but real food!

For me, it's another example that simple things like eating well, getting outside, or exercising can reduce the risk of dementia....

Thoughts?
Comments?

Thank you!!

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Some research in Scotland, with only a few participants, showed that high intensity training [6 second bursts of going "all out"] may be very beneficial.

Over the 6 week study, they increased the burst to 1 minute and the researchers found this HIT exercising lowered blood pressure and made regular life tasks like dog walking easier for the participants.

More research is needed with more people, but it does seem to be saying that:

"...you're never too old, too frail, too ill to benefit from exercise, as long as it's carefully chosen."

"We know even into your 80s and 90s there's a benefit from developing a very slight sweat by exercising on multiple occasions per week."

So? What are you waiting for?

Me? I'm taking woof for some short burst training.

Have you tried this? How did it help? Or not?

Comments?  Thank you......

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Do we rely too much on drugs and not on prevention?

According to some recent researchers:

Between 2002 and 2012, they found 99.6% of trials of drugs aimed at preventing, curing or improving the symptoms of Alzheimer's had failed or been discontinued.

This compares with a failure rate of 81% for cancer drugs.

The failure rate was "especially troubling" given the rising numbers of people with dementia, said Dr Simon Ridley, of Alzheimer's Research UK.

"The authors of the study highlight a worrying decline in the number of clinical trials for Alzheimer's treatments in more recent years," he said.

"There is a danger that the high failure rates of trials in the past will discourage pharmaceutical companies from investing in dementia research.

"The only way we will successfully defeat dementia is to continue with high quality, innovative research, improve links with industry and increase investment in clinical trials."

Frankly, maybe instead of looking for drugs, research ought to look at other ways of staving off the effects of Alzeiheimers. There has been research on tests for Alzeiheimers and there is also newer research on alternative ways to prevent the disease.

I don't want to go on my big pharma rant here, but maybe looking for alternatives to drugs might just be the best thing?

Not just for this, but for many diseases, prevention may be better than drug treatment - especially when over 99% of the trial fail??

Just thinking out loud.....

Your thoughts? Comments?
Thank you

Sleep! We all need sleep and most of us do not get enough of it:
Recent research shows:

Researchers at New York University School of Medicine and Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School trained mice in a new skill - walking on top of a rotating rod.

They then looked inside the living brain with a microscope to see what happened when the animals were either sleeping or sleep deprived.

Their study showed that sleeping mice formed significantly more new connections between neurons - they were learning more.

Yes, it was a study with mice, but many studies are done with mice and later found to be true with humans....

We already wrote about the cleansing aspect of sleep. Sleep rids brains of toxins.

And now we have another good reason to get sufficient sleep.

Do you get enough sleep?

Thoughts?

Comments?​