Being Bi-Lingual Could Avert Alzheimer’s by 5 Years

There are many suggested ways to delay or even avert Alzheimer’s and they usually revolve around staying mentally active. Now new research from Canada has found more dramatic evidence that speaking two languages can help delay the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms by as much as five years.

The latest study examined the clinical records of more than 200 patients diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s disease and found that those who have spoken two or more languages consistently over many years experienced a delay in the onset of their symptoms by as much as five years. Dual language capability is not uncommon in Canada where many speak both English and French and the science team are not claiming that bilingualism in any way prevents Alzheimer’s or other dementias. What they are saying is that it may contribute to cognitive reserve in the brain which appears to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms for quite some time.

The lead investigator is Dr. Craik who is also co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Memory and he clarified that the brains of people who speak two languages still show deterioration from Alzheimer’s, however their special ability with two languages seems to equip them with compensatory skills to hold back the tell-tale symptoms of Alzheimer’s, such as memory loss, confusion, and difficulties with problem-solving and planning.

The researchers found that bilingual patients had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s 4.3 years later and had reported the onset of symptoms five years later than the patients who spoke only one language. Interestingly, there was no apparent effect of immigration status, and there were no gender differences.

The current study adds to mounting scientific evidence that lifestyle factors – such as regular cardiovascular exercise, a healthy diet, and keeping mentally alert – can play a central role in how the brain copes with age-related cognitive decline and diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

“Although a great deal of research is being focused on the development of new and more effective medications for Alzheimer’s disease, there are currently no drug treatments that show any effects on delaying Alzheimer’s symptoms, let alone delaying the onset of these symptoms by up to five years,” said Dr. Freedman, head of Neurology and director of the Sam and Ida Ross Memory Clinic at Baycrest.

That being the case it might be time to dust off the Linguaphone records, or sign up for a language class at your local adult education centre. Chinese ought to be difficult enough to stir the brain cells into action!

Two Simple Ways To Achieve A Better Memory And Avoid Cognitive Impairment

What if I told you that keeping your mind sharp and your faculties in top notch condition could be achieved without any great effort, and you might even enjoy it? Well, I hope you would be tempted to try it and the most recent research offers great hope on how we can stay lively and alert and it works whether you are a student or retired so keep reading…

The first method is something you are no doubt already doing if you enjoy talking to others in a social setting. Of course most of us do, but a new University of Michigan study shows that talking with other people in a friendly way can make it easier to solve common problems can provide mental benefits according to psychologist Oscar Ybarra, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research.
But, and there is always a but isn’t there, the emphasis is on friendly because conversations that are competitive in tone, rather than cooperative, have no cognitive benefits and indeed have negative results in terms of raising blood pressure and possibly losing said friends.

Cognitive function includes working memory, self-monitoring, and the ability to suppress external and internal distractions — all of which are essential in solving common life problems and succeeding at the bridge table. Previous research has found that social interaction provides a short-term boost to cognitive function that’s comparable in size to playing brain games, such as solving crossword puzzles.

Even having just a brief 10 minute conversation where you are getting to know another person can result in a boost to your subsequent performance on an array of common cognitive tasks. All very nice, and enjoyable, but why or how does it work?

“We believe that performance boosts come about because some social interactions induce people to try to read others’ minds and take their perspectives on things,” Ybarra said. “And we also find that when we structure even competitive interactions to have an element of taking the other person’s perspective, or trying to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, there is a boost in executive functioning as a result.”

What this highlights is the connection between social intelligence and general intelligence and so if you want to perform your best, having a friendly chat with a colleague before a big presentation or test may be a good strategy.

A second approach:
Many people are already aware that the B-Complex vitamins help us when stressed, indeed they are a popular element in stress supplements together with vitamin C, and new research now shows they may also help to slow the progress of dementia.

A two-year clinical trial in Oxford has shown that B vitamins, including B-6, B-12 and folic acid, slow down the rate of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by half. MCI is a condition which is a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia as approximately 50 percent of people diagnosed with MCI go on to develop Alzheimer’s within five years

Scientists from Oxford University said their two-year clinical trial was the largest to date and David Smith of Oxford’s department of pharmacology, who co-led the trial, said: ”It is our hope that this simple and safe treatment will delay development of Alzheimer’s in many people who suffer from mild memory problems.”

MCI does not usually interfere with daily life, but around 50 percent of people diagnosed with it go on to develop the far more severe Alzheimer’s disease within five years. Smith and colleagues conducted a two-year trial with 168 volunteers with MCI who were given either a vitamin pill containing very high doses of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, or a placebo dummy pill.

These B vitamins are known to control levels of an amino acid called homocysteine in the blood, and high blood levels of homocysteine are linked to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Brain scans were taken at the beginning and the end of the trial to monitor the rate of brain shrinkage, or atrophy.

Dr. Gustavo C. Román, medical director of the Alzheimer & Dementia Center at the Methodist Neurological Institute in Houston, Texas, said that patients who already exhibit signs of dementia and test positive for high levels of homocysteine are more likely to respond well to the large doses of B vitamins.

CAUTION: If you want to try this for yourself, please be aware that the trial involved extremely high doses that have to be closely medically monitored so do not self dose at anything over the recommended levels without medical advice.

As a preventive, adding a high potency vitamin B complex to your daily routine can’t hurt and could be extremely helpful.

Low Testosterone Linked to Alzheimer’s and Early Death

Hormone balance is not confined to women but somehow men don’t get the same level of attention. This may be because they do not pay as much attention to their own health, or visit the doctor as often, so this is aimed as much at the women in their life as it is at them. This is an alert to prompt men to get their testosterone levels checked because of the new links between that and Alzheimer’s and even premature death.

Alzheimer’s
This new research on Alzheimer’s comes from a team that was led by Leung-Wing Chu, M.D., Chief of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at Queen Mary Hospital at the University of Hong Kong. The researchers studied 153 Chinese men who were at least 55 years and older, lived in the community and didn’t have dementia. Of those men, 47 had mild cognitive impairment — or problems with clear thinking and memory loss.

Within a year, 10 men who all were part of the cognitively impaired group developed probable Alzheimer’s disease. They also had low testosterone; elevated levels of the ApoE 4 (apolipoprotein E) protein, which is correlated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease; and high blood pressure. Going a step further, the research indicates that having good levels of testosterone may also have a protective value against the disease.

Low Testosterone Linked to Greater Risk of Early Death
A report in the BMJ-British Medical Journal this month also reported that low testosterone levels seem to be linked to a heightened risk of premature death from heart disease and all causes.

This research is based on 930 men, all of whom had coronary artery heart disease, and had been referred to a specialist heart centre between 2000 and 2002. Their heart health was then tracked for around 7 years.

On referral, low testosterone was relatively common. One in four of the men was classified as having low testosterone, as opposed to a tailing off in levels of the hormone as a result of ageing. During the monitoring period almost twice as many men with low testosterone died as did those with normal levels.

The only factors that influenced this risk were heart failure, treatment with aspirin or a high blood pressure drug and low bio-T levels. A low bio-T level was an independent risk factor for premature death from all causes and from heart disease, after taking account of other influential factors, such as age, other underlying health problems, smoking and weight.

It is not just low levels that are a problem either, as borderline levels of low total testosterone also increased the risk of an early death. Low levels are associated with obesity, risky blood fats, and insulin resistance, all of which are themselves risk factors for diabetes and heart disease.

Time for a visit to the doctor?

Help for Bad Backs and Knees and Clean Floors!

I don’t know what it is about getting older, but the knees are definitely not quite as flexible as they used to be and I know from my young relatives that pregnancy also makes getting down to the floor more of a problem. If you just want a quick clear up and don’t want to have to do drag out the Hoover — and you certainly don’t want to get out the dustpan and brush — then I have been trying out something that you might find helpful. It’s a cordless Power sweeper that is rechargeable and also seems to be very helpful for a friend with arthritis in her hands who has also been trying it for me.

I always like to see British design and the Gtech Cordless Power Sweeper is based in Worcestershire and is apparently selling well to pregnant women and those of us for whom the floor has got rather farther away than it used to be. Lifting heavy items whether you are pregnant, or have a bad back, is not advised and sadly many household vacuum cleaners are fairly heavy.

The Gtech has the advantage of weighing only 1.6kg and is fully rechargeable so you are not trailing any flex either. It will not replace your vacuum cleaner as it has only a small slide out drawer to collect dust and debris, but it is invaluable for day-to-day light use and the manufacturers claim that it will even pick up glass — which happily I never had to put to the test.

What certainly surprised me is that having invested in a specific (and very expensive) cleaner for dealing with pet hair this small sweeper actually pulled up more hair out of the carpet and is much more efficient than I would have expected.

It will be useful for anyone with problems with their back, or bending, but the telescopic handle has a very unconventional shape – like a large firm loop -which makes it very comfortable to hold for anyone who has problems with their hands and its swivels easily to make the sweeper of a flexible in use. The friend with arthritis who used it certainly found it much easier to use and more comfortable than the conventional handle on a vacuum cleaner.

You should find it in most high street retailers including Argos, Comet, Currys, Lakeland and Robert Dyas but in case of difficulty go to their website at www.gtechonline.co.uk

Cognitive decline can start in the womb in malnourished pregnancies

One of the conditions that most frightens us, and has seen such a rapid increase in the last 50 years, is Alzheimer’s with its accompanying cognitive decline. Now there is an interesting new approach based on a recent retrospective study that seems to indicate that poor or inadequate nutrition during the early part of pregnancy appears to accelerate cognitive decline in later life for the baby.

This work has been based on a study of people exposed to severe prenatal malnutrition in the Netherlands during World War II, but I believe also has great significance for the increasing number of people in the West who are on nutritionally poor diets. This was a regression analysis of almost 300 men and women born in Amsterdam during a severe food shortage in the winter of 1944 to 1945 and what the researchers found was that those conceived during that period (and considered to be exposed to famine in utero) performed significantly worse when tested for selective attention at ages 56 to 59.

During the winter of 1944 and 1945, a severe food shortage struck the western Netherlands as a result of a German embargo on food transport in response to a Dutch railway strike intended to hamper German troop movements. Food rations among this normally well-nourished population rapidly fell to as little as 400 to 800 calories per person during the five to six months of famine.

Susanne R. de Rooij, PhD, of the University of Amsterdam, led the study and she hypothesized that because the Dutch group had previously associated prenatal exposure to famine with coronary heart disease and diabetes — both aging-related chronic diseases — that this early exposure may also lead to premature age-related cognitive decline.

Indeed, they found on regression analysis that exposed individuals performed significantly worse in cognitive function tests than those who had not suffered this nutritional devastation. The study subjects were 56 to 59 years of age and undertook a general intelligence test, a perceptual motor-learning task, a memory task, and a selective attention task.

The participants did no worse than the control group on any of the tests except for that of selective attention. The researchers have speculated that those exposed to malnutrition during the first part of pregnancy are most vulnerable and a possible explanation is because of the effect of malnutrition on the development of the central nervous system, which occurs early in gestation. Another possibility is that the cognitive decline reflects vascular damage, which is supported by the researchers’ previous finding that famine exposure was associated with dyslipidemia and coronary heart disease.

Why these findings affect all of us:

This is not a definitive study, but I do think it’s worth paying attention to. The effect of nutrition on development throughout life is well known and I, along with many others interested in natural health, definitely see a link between the increase in conditions such as Alzheimer’s and the worsening dietary habits in the West.

We know from previous research that the vitamin and mineral content of food has been seriously depleted by modern farming methods and the overuse of pesticides and antibiotics in the animal food chain. Much of what we eat is nutritionally barren, and an addiction to fast foods, sugar and empty calories is leading to the current generation, who are the parents of the future, passing on their own nutritional deficiencies to their children.

Those who are trying to start a family know that the best advice they are given is to make themselves as healthy as possible in order to have a truly healthy baby. I have previously touched on the decline in both numbers and potency of the current generation’s sperm due to the environmental effect of such things as xenoestrogens and we also know that whatever the mother takes into her body during pregnancy will pass through the placenta to the baby. A generation reared on Diet Coke and McDonald’s are not essentially giving their unborn child the best start in life.

Natural Remedies for Sciatica

Each year, many people are forced to miss out on activities they enjoy because of sciatica-related pain. The sciatic nerve runs from the lower back all the way down the legs, and the pain associated with sciatica can be severe. Sciatica can be caused by many issues including herniated discs, bone spurs, poor posture, obesity, weak muscles, and major trauma. The symptoms of sciatica include weakness, pain, and numbness anywhere along the sciatic nerve. These symptoms can be incapacitating and most people will do anything they can to relieve their symptoms.

When walking it is important to always maintain proper posture. Walk upright with your head held upward. One way of teaching yourself the proper posture when walking is to get you back against a wall so that your head heels and your buttocks touch the wall and walk outwards maintaining that exact posture. When you sit it is good to remember to keep your thighs parallel with the floor and sit in an upward position and slouch back slightly. Sleeping is always one of the key ways to maintain a day free from lower back pain caused by sciatica. If you wake up pain free you are more likely to have a pain free day. The best way to sleep at night is by sleeping in fetal position with a pillow in between your knees.

Treatment for sciatica is directed towards maximizing mobility and your independence. The nerve problem should be classified and treated the right way. Some people with this need no treatment, and heal spontaneously. If there was no evidence of nerve degeneration, no history of trauma, sudden onset of the pain, no difficulty moving, then conservative treatments are the most effective.

Eating is very important, you want to make sure to maintain a healthy weight by eating properly. If you are over weight it puts more pressure on your back causing more pain than you would normally experience if you were at a healthy average weight. Being overweight means making your body carry around the extra burden of those gained pounds by eating unhealthy.

Legions that press on the nerve will have to be surgically removed. This may relieve your symptoms. In cases with lacerations to the nerves, even with sciatica treatment, recovery may be limited, or not possible. Injections are usually given to ease the swelling and irritation around the nerve. Over the counter medicines are given to relieve your nerve pain.

Sciatol is a natural supplement. Its formulated to support the health of the sciatic nerve, spine, and spinal cord. This is the best medicine to take to relieve the pain and discomfort caused by sciatica. Sciatol contains six potent ingredients carefully chosen by scientists and expert herbalists. Based on clinical studies, Sciatol is scientifically formulated to relieve sciatic pain and discomfort, reduce inflammation and swelling, relax muscles, prevent muscle spasms, sooth the sciatic nerve, relieve pressure on the sciatic nerve.

Looking to find info on Exercises For Sciatica – What Causes Back Pain?, then visit our site to find the best advice on Certified Rolfing 10 Series- Treating Sciatica and Sleeve for you.

Are Men Too Stressed to Cope with Heart Attack Risk?

You may have seen the news reports this week that because men are working longer hours and taking less exercise they are doubling their risk of a heart attack. If you know anyone in this vulnerable position, you might want to pass on this email to them to reinforce the importance of taking care of your heart in order to stay healthy.

Click here to find out more information about my How To Cope With Stress eBook —-> Cope With Stress

We know that stress plays a major part in whether or not you are going to be more likely to succumb to a whole host of health problems and heart disease is a major killer. Trying to handle a constant level of stress will undermine all your best efforts at staying healthy so I want to offer you some immediate help to identify and deal with your personal vulnerability to stress

Poor health, strained relationships, lack of effectiveness at work or at school are just some of the results of living with stress on a daily basis. Of course we cope, we have become experts at that, but we all have limits and going over them has serious consequences for our physical and mental and emotional health.

One of the problems of coping with stress is that we take that stressed state for granted and it becomes ‘normal’ for us and we don’t see the warning signs. Like all my books, this brand new ebook came from my own, and my clients, issues and in trying to help them I came up with some unique insights and a clear, practical plan to help them move on with their lives. When you are stressed you don’t have time to wade through heavy tomes or search out key information: now you don’t have to because I have done it for you. Here you will find all the easy, accessible information that you need to help you to identify the causes of stress in your life and then get some real, working, solutions.

How will this help men to cope?

In too many ways to list here, but if you are genuinely looking for ideas and solutions, then these are some of the key elements you will benefit from:

• Identifying the emotional and physical symptoms of stress

• Discovering the Chemical Connection to Stress

• Your Personal Vulnerabilities

• Self-assessment questionnaires

• Conventional and alternative treatments compared

• Self-help options

• Top tips to handle stress every day

Are you handling your stress or is it handling you?

Once you have read the book, then you can continue to use those top tips as part of your everyday life. Stress comes from those things that upset us the most and that is usually related to change. I have designed an action plan for both types. Knowing which you are will lead you to solutions to dealing with your stress, and there are questionnaires in the book to help you identify just what stresses you the most.

You are unique, and what stresses you, and how you respond to it is unique too. I have been writing and speaking about handling stress for over ten years and I know how distressing it can be to live with – both for you, and your friends, family and colleagues as they watch you struggle without really knowing how to help.

Let me give you the tools to not only overcome the stress you are currently dealing with, but give you with the means to avoid it in the future. I know it works, and so do those who have read it.

Are you ready?

If you want to know if my approach works, then my instantly down loadable e-book will be with you immediately so you can start to put your positive health plan into action. Visit my website at www.creativecatalyst.co.uk and on the marketplace page you will be able to buy How to Handle Stress — your proven action plan for just $9.97 and as a special bonus you also get my free special report on “ATTITUDE AND ILLNESS” because that is a key factor in having that healthy, stress-free future. Click here to find out more information —-> Cope With Stress

If you will learn to handle your stress, and not let it handle you, then that is a major bonus on the road to reducing your risk of a heart attack.

Weight training for the over 50s

When you mention weights to me, I tend to think of dark and sweaty rooms full of people (well men actually) sweating away to the accompanying noise of clanging barbells. However it seems that I am wrong as I was just sent a new book which has been written by two very respectable looking ladies (one even wears pearls) which offers the complete program to what they describe as staying stronger longer and contains easy exercises to avoid the effects of the ageing process and be fit for life.

Pauline Eborall and Patricia Furber are the authors of ‘Wonderful Ways With Weights’ and were inspired to write it because of their own unsatisfactory experiences as middle-aged women in fitness classes and gyms. For both men and women osteoporosis is a real danger as we get older and weight bearing exercise is one of the best ways to combat it and these exercises focus on building a strong body and happily they also say that you do not have to be fit to start. The exercises are based on their own experience and were roadtested on a group of their friends for over a year aged between 40 to 80. What they found was that if exercise is regular and progressive than strength can be gained and maintain even by those in their 80s and 90s.

This regime is gentle and gradual and you never need push yourself beyond your current level of fitness as it is a continuous process. Indeed they even have exercises in their easy to follow illustrated guide that include exercising in water and from a chair. What I particularly liked was that the photographs used show people of the right age doing these exercises which makes it seem much more realistic.

As well as exercises there is also good dietary advice and tips scattered through the book on improving things like arthritis and even suggestions for spicing up food without using salt. If you’d like to get a copy then it is available from Amazon or at www.kintburypublishing.co.uk

Zinc Can Help Prevent Pneumonia In Over Sixties

Zinc is certainly an essential ingredient in your diet for fighting infection and something that I supplement with every winter to keep colds at bay and now my anecdotal experience has been medically validated.

That is probably a first, but a new report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has found that zinc plays a very important role in health maintenance, particularly for the over 60s. Simin Nikbin Meydani, DVM, PhD of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Massachusetts studied over 600 people from 33 different nursing homes in the Boston area.

What they found was that those with healthy blood levels of zinc are 50 percent less likely to develop pneumonia than those with sub-par levels. The study was a follow-up to a previous one which found that people given 200 international units (IU) of vitamin E every day for one year are 20 percent less likely to develop upper respiratory infections, including common colds. But after a follow-up, the trial also revealed that a majority of those same participants had low levels of zinc in their blood. As we saw in the previous item, zinc is a necessary mineral for maintaining immune health, regulation of blood pressure and the mineralization of bone and as well as being essential For the eyes and prostate.

The study’s conclusion is that daily zinc intake can help nursing home residents who are susceptible to pneumonia as it can reduce the risk of developing pneumonia by about 50%. Plus – bearing in mind the previous item – not only did those participants have a higher risk of developing pneumonia when they did become sick, they did not recover as quickly and required a longer course of antibiotics.

Another factor to bear in mind is that they also found that those who were taking regular zinc supplements also had a 39% lower rate of deaths from all causes than a comparable group who were not taking supplements.

Food sources:

Best sources of zinc are the protein foods including beef, lamb, pork, crabmeat, turkey, chicken, lobster, oysters, clams and salmon. Other good sources are dairy products, yeast, peanuts, beans, and wholegrain cereals, brown rice, whole wheat bread, potato and yogurt. For vegetarians and vegans pumpkin seeds offer one of the most concentrated non-meat food sources of zinc.

If you have a good and varied diet then your body getting enough zinc, the RDA for adults is around 11 mg a day, but the actual amount your body can absorb may be as little as 15 to 40% but you can improve this if you are taking Vitamins C, E and B6 and minerals such as magnesium as they can increase zinc absorption in the body.

The Benefits Of Eating A Raw Food Diet

So I guess by reading this article, you may be asking what are the benefits to eating a raw food diet ? Well, the benefits of eating more raw foods are numerous and once you understand them you’ll probably wonder why you haven’t eaten more raw in the past. You’ll also think twice about eating dead cooked foods ever again.

Raw Foods Give You More Energy

I can’t tell you of one person I know that follows a raw food diet that doesn’t have more energy than the average person . I know that when I transitioned away from eating a diet made up of breads, dairy, and cooked foods, and adopted more of a raw foods diet, my energy went through the roof. And I’m not talking about the quick surge you would get from an espresso but alternatively long-lasting energy that enables you to do more with less.
An example, eating raw foods will allow your body to sleep less and have far more energy than you’ve ever felt before . When I’m eating at least 80% raw, I can easily function on just 4-5 hours of sleep. I literally bounce out of bed and don’t require any naps throughout the day. Oh yeah, did I mention that I workout every single day as well? Sometimes, even twice!

Energizing Enzymes
When following a raw food diet, there are several reasons why it will give you more energy . First, raw foods are rich in food enzymes. Enzymes are compulsory for every single reaction in the body. Unfortunately, our bodies only have a finite number of these enzymes, so when we run out, we run out of life! To add to this, when you heat foods above 118 degrees fahrenheit, you destruct the food enzymes that are naturally present in all raw foods. Therefore, if you eat a predominantly cooked foods diet, you’re not getting enough food enzymes, which means that your body will have to produce and use more of its own to digest and metabolize your foods.

The less energy you will have for activities if your body requires more energy to divert towards digestion . You will feel more lethargic and tired as your body is trying to breakdown “dead” foods and figure out what to do with them.

So the food enzymes apparent in raw foods are a big reason why it boosts your energy . They are the spark plugs and are intricately related to the next property that make raw foods so energy-boosting.

Life Force

When raw foods are left intact, they are also known as living foods . They are named “living” because they carry an incredible amount of life force.

Now, since every living being has an aura or energy field illuminating from their body, which foods do you think would enhance yours? Cooked foods that are dead or high energy raw foods ? I think we both know the answer.

As I like to say, “eat alive and you will thrive”.

Weight Loss and Beautiful Skin

The other highly sought-after quality of a raw foods diet is its ability to help you lose weight and beautify your skin . Almost all raw foodists have reported losing weight they could never lose. At the same time, they notice an instant improvement in their skin. They look younger and have a natural glow that comes about because of the “living” nature of raw foods, their abundance of enzymes, and of course the plethora of nutrients that are ingested when eating more fruits and vegetables.

You will find it easier to lose weight on a raw food diet because your getting more nutrients and, therefore, your body won’t crave “dead” foods. Second, the enzymes help to breakdown the foods you are eating and excess energy and fat stores in your body. Third, raw foods are water-rich, which helps you feel more satiated, as well as hydrated.

Many of these reasons also help us explain why living foods make you look younger and beautify your skin. Enzymes, life force, water, and high quality nutrients all play a role in natural skin care.

We could talk about the benefits of a raw food diet for hours but the only to truly understand them is to experience them for yourself. So why not take action today and enjoy the health, the body, and the vitality that you deserve!

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