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What’s New in Alzheimer’s Research?
“I can’t say when we will have a cure, but we now know through our findings how to ask the question of what is going wrong at the earliest stage of Alzheimer’s. – John O’Keefe
Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative disease of the brain that affects more than 50 million people worldwide, and 5.8 million in America alone. Dementia is its most common form. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, someone in the United States develops Alzheimer’s every 65 seconds. While there’s currently no treatment or cure that can stop Alzheimer’s or slow progression of the disease, there are medications and various treatments to help manage symptoms. Still, loved ones and family members of those suffering with Alzheimer’s can have hope, as research into a possible cure and even more effective medications to combat symptoms continues at a brisk pace.
Genotypes May Be Key to Determine if Alzheimer’s Drugs Work
Researchers at the University of Buffalo found that a gene present in 75 percent of Alzheimer’s patients, but not in animals, is the reason why drugs found successful in animal testing failed to work in humans with the gene. The gene, CHRFAM7A, is a “fusion between a gene that codes for an Alpha 7 receptor for acetylcholine…and a kinase.” The gene is implicated in numerous psychiatric disorders. Researchers said that three of four Alzheimer’s drugs available today work by stimulating receptors responding to acetylcholine, while specific Alpha 7 drugs failed during clinical phase after being in development for more than a decade.
As a result of their findings, researchers their findings confirm that Alpha 7 “is a very important target for treating Alzheimer’s,” but a human model must be used to test new drugs. They also said that a more personalized treatment approach for individual patients may be necessary, and should be based on the patients’ CHRFAM7A genotype, noting that one drug may work in 25 percent of Alzheimer’s patients, while another will work in 75 percent.
Eye Test to Find Alzheimer’s Disease Early?
Since previous studies examining the eyes of deceased Alzheimer’s patients found thinning of the retina and optic nerve degradation, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine explored whether a simple eye test may be able to detect the disease in older adults with no clinical symptoms. Using optical coherence tomography angiography, a noninvasive technique, researchers found that about half of the study’s participants had elevated levels of amyloid or tau, Alzheimer’s proteins, which indicated they’d likely develop the disease at some point. In addition, they all had retinal thinning. Since Alzheimer’s pathology starts developing long before symptoms appear, being able to use this simple eye test to identify beginning stages of the pathology may encourage earlier treatments to slow further damage.
Promising APEX Blood Test for Earlier Alzheimer’s Detection
There’s excitement among Alzheimer’s researchers at Duke University studying use of amplified plasmonic exosome, officially called APEX, designed with the aim of earlier detection of the degenerative brain disease. It’s the first blood test for detecting Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, APEX is a blood-based method that works by ferreting out a molecular marker indicated in the disease’s early stages, aggregated amyloid beta.
Researchers say that this blood test is quicker, cheaper, and more accurate than other methods for testing and diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, which aren’t able to detect the disease until late stages, when much damage has been done. The results of their study were published in Nature Communications. As for next steps, the research team is working with industrial partners to commercialize the technology, which is anticipated to hit the market in 5 years.
Alzheimer’s Gene May Effect Cognition in Childhood & Adolescence
Research from a team at the University of California, Riverside, published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, has found some intriguing evidence that children and adolescents carrying the APOE4 gene allele score lower on IQ tests than peers without the allele. And, girls showed more cognition difference than boys. APOE4 is present, say researchers, in about 15 percent of the population. Furthermore, carriers of APOE4 are three times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s that is late-onset, typically in those aged 65 and older.
Researchers say that their result suggest that cognitive differences associated with APOE4 may begin early and become magnified in adult years, adding that earlier intervention efforts in childhood to boost cognitive reserves may prove beneficial. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Carrying Extra Weight in Your 60s May Be Linked to Later Brain Thinning
In a study published in Neurology, the medical journal, American Academy of Neurology, researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine found an association between bigger waists and higher body mass index (BMI) and thinning of the gray matter in the brain’s cortex. Measurements of the participants’ waists and BMI were taken prior to the start of the study. Some two-thirds of study group were Latino, and the average age was 64. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was done about six years later to measure cortex brain area thickness, and overall volume of the brain, plus some additional factors.
Although careful to note that their results do not prove extra weight results in a thinner cortex, researchers said there is an association. Furthermore, although the overall thinning rate of the cortex in normal aging adults occurs (between 0.01 and 0.10 millimeters per decade), “being overweight or obese may accelerate aging in the brain by at least a decade.” Importantly, researchers pointed to the possibility that losing weight may help individuals “stave off” their brain aging, and perhaps some of the problems with thought and memory that co-occur with brain aging. Support for the study came from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, as well as the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute.
Apathy Often Present in Those with Dementia
Research from the University of Exeter shows that apathy, the most common symptom of dementia, is present in about half of those who have dementia. Researchers noted that apathy, which is distinct from depression, is little studied and often ignored in patient care. Apathy, characterized by loss of emotions and interest, can have devastating consequences for the patient and family members. Thus, a better understanding and prioritized research of apathy can lead to interventions that may provide significant benefit to those with dementia.
Optimistic people sleep better and longer, finds a new study (n = 3,548, young and middle-aged adults). “Dispositional optimism, the belief that positive things will occur in the future, has emerged as a psychological asset for disease-free survival and superior health.”
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Are You Doing Microworkouts? Here’s Why You Should.
The fitness industry is in the midst of a renaissance. Flawed and dated strategies like sedentary recovery practices or overly stressful HIIT workouts are being replaced with cutting-edge practices that offer more efficiency and return on investment. Today I’m covering one emerging fitness strategy: performing brief feats of strength in the routine course of a day. Let’s call them microworkouts.
I’m talking here about dropping for a single set of deep squats in the office, hitting a set of max effort pull-ups whenever you pass under a bar in a closet doorway, or stocking your backyard with a hex deadlift bar or bench press and busting out a single set every time you pass by while taking out the garbage.
Banking Benefits With Less Stress
Micro-workouts deliver two distinct and awesome benefits: First, when you add up the energy expenditure of these brief but frequent efforts, you obtain an incredible cumulative training effect. In essence, you are banking a lot of strength/power/explosiveness “mileage” without disturbing the necessary stress/rest balance of your official workout schedule or prompting the stress hormone production and cellular depletion that occurs from an extreme weekend warrior-type session. That is, a set of pull-ups, or even three sets over the course of 12 hours on a typical day, is not going to mess up the next day’s CrossFit session or even an ambitious arms and chest session. Rather, these micro sessions (Dr. Phil Maffetone calls the concept, “slow weights”) will raise the baseline from which you launch you ambitious full-scale workouts.
Think about it: If you do a single set of six deadlifts with 200 pounds on the bar every time you take out the garbage, that’s 1,200 pounds of work accomplished. Perhaps you can find your way to doing that 1-2 times a day, five or six days a week? That’s lifting an extra 10,000 pounds a week! When it’s time to perform a formal session, such as the popular 5 x 5 protocol (where you complete five sets of five reps, and perhaps add an upper body exercise to each set), you’re poised for fitness breakthroughs as well as faster recovery times. An “official” workout is no longer this tremendous athletic performance vastly outside the normal pattern of your largely sedentary life, but instead an upgrade of what you do every day to some extent. Does this concept ring a bell? Yes, micro-workouts are modeling the behavior patterns of our hunter-gatherer ancestors! Grok and company likely had some harsh days that might rival today’s CrossFit WOD or obstacle course race, but they also likely had routine daily chores entailing lifting heavy things or scrambling up steep embankments in between their legendary leisure time.
Interrupting Prolonged Inactivity
The second benefit of micro-workouts is perhaps even more profound: these short efforts help you combat the extreme health hazard of prolonged periods of stillness that characterize hyperconnected modern life. The adverse health consequences of stillness have been well-chronicled, and you’ve heard me talk about them for years. Studies show that even a few days of inactivity can generate a significant decline in glucose tolerance and increase in insulin resistance. In Primal Endurance, I quote Nutritious Movement queen Katy Bowman on the destruction of cellular health caused by stillness: “When you use a single position repetitively, such as curling your body into a comfortable work chair for hours every day, muscles, joints, and arteries will adapt to this repetitive positioning by changing their cellular makeup and becoming literally ‘stiff,’ with reduced ranges of motion and an actual hardening of the arterial walls in those areas.”
Strange as it may seem, it’s now becoming clear that increasing all forms of general everyday movement is a greater health priority than conducting ambitious workouts. Microworkouts, along with continued devotion to JFW (Just F—ing Walk) takes on increasing importance as daily life gets more effortless. Even if you’re a devoted gym rat, those few hours a week when you’re pushing weight around isn’t enough to combat a lifestyle of commuting, office work, and digital entertainment leisure time. The active couch potato syndrome is a scientifically validated concept revealing that devoted workout enthusiasts who lead otherwise sedentary lifestyles are subject to the same level of disease risk as inactive folks.
Optimizing Movement For the Most Advantageous Genetic Signaling
But none of this is new. A decade ago now Time magazine offered a memorable title, “The Myth Of Exercise.” The story detailed how a strenuous workout (particularly the common workout patterns and strategies of today that can become chronically stressful) depletes cellular energy and prompts a compensatory response in the form of an increased appetite along with decreased activity for the rest of the day. More recently, I wrote about the constrained model of energy expenditure as well as the amazing study of the Hadza that’s helping us reframe the purpose and intended benefits of exercise.
As I’ve been saying since the introduction of the 10 Primal Blueprint Laws over a decade ago, it’s not about the calories but about the movement and the genetic signaling that movement prompts. The Myth of Exercise concept aligns with my longtime assertion that 80% of your body composition success is dependent on your diet—specifically, minimizing the wildly excessive insulin production that happens from a grain-based, high carbohydrate diet and prevents you from burning stored body fat.
How To Incorporate Microworkouts
Armed with the insight to no workout is too short, and any kind of movement delivers a health and fitness benefit, you can elevate micro-workouts to the forefront of your fitness plan. Reject the all or nothing mentality that causes you to fail with fitness commitments because you get too busy with work and life. We all have time for a set or two or three of deep squats during the workday or during leisure time.
Look for opportunities over the course of every day to put your body under some kind of brief resistance load. Even if you only work hard for one minute (or less) at a time but are relatively faithful incorporating these “micro” opportunities into your daily routine, the cumulative effect will still be incredible.
Word of Caution: Going from a prolonged inactive state to a performing a heavy lift carries an obvious risk factor. Truth be told, I generally precede my random sets of pull-ups, deadlifts or even cords by a minute of walking, a few dynamic stretches, or some specific warm-up moves like doing a set with a much lighter weight, followed by a “real” set with a respectable weight. It’s not a lot of time or effort, but it’s a good habit to add the resistance after you’ve been up and doing something for a few minutes (e.g. taking out the garbage, bringing in groceries, finishing an indoor/outdoor chore).
Beyond that, also realize that when you make micro-workouts a daily habit, you’ll discover that you’re much more adaptable to brief explosive efforts without a long warm-up. You’ll be able to pop up from your work desk to hustle down a flight of stairs at work without hearing the creaks and cracks that are so familiar, especially to aging jocks. My longtime writing partner Brad Kearns (our next book will be a comprehensive education and action plan on the topics of longevity—due out in December) swears that his brief morning flexibility/mobility routine. He says it’s transformed his recovery from sprint workouts. No more next-day stiffness and soreness and occasional minor injuries—just because he spends 12 minutes every morning working on drills specific to sprinting that challenge the glutes, hamstrings and core.
Dr. Art DeVany, Ph.D., author of The New Evolution Diet and one of my earliest and greatest inspirations for Primal-inspired health practices, says that the lion never has to stretch before a workout, and we shouldn’t have to either. No, our modern creakiness can be attributed to overtraining patterns (in the case of morning issues) or extended stillness without a movement break when you get up and hobble during the day. Our ancestors most certainly had to run for their lives with zero warning on a routine basis. It’s a good Primal skill to have still.
Micro workouts are also applicable to cardiovascular fitness. A few minutes here and a few minutes there have a similar cumulative effect. Dr. Phil Maffetone explains that any stimulation of the aerobic system, even really low intensity stuff that a hard-core athlete might not choose to count as an official workout, helps improve your cardiovascular health and fitness. There’s really no lower limit to the aerobic exercise zone.
Anytime you get up from a chair and walk, you’re getting an aerobic benefit. A couple minutes recruiting major muscle groups with Stretch Cordz confers a new advantage. A cruise ship analogy works well here. When the floating city is out on the open ocean, cruising at 20 knots en route to the next port, all twelve turbine engines are cranking at full throttle. When it’s cruising in the harbor at two knots in preparation for docking, only a couple turbines are operating at half power. However, the two turbines operating at half speed in the harbor are still being “trained” to perform when they’re called up on in the open ocean. Note: I’ve revised my position on this concept over the years as research filled in the picture. Early on, I used to designate an aerobic zone of 55-75% of maximum heart rate. I’m not saying abandon time in that range, but know that anything outside of it also counts for something, and that should be good news.
If you so much as jump up from your desk, scramble down the stairs and out to your vehicle, then return with a few floors of ascent and back to your desk—total time five minutes and eight seconds. You’ll be turbocharging fat burning, increasing oxygen delivery and blood circulation to the brain, and flooding the bloodstream with neurotransmitters that elevate mood and improve cognitive focus. Similarly, anytime you haul off a set of pushups or squats, you’re making a meaningful contribution to your fitness and longevity.
Every effort, however modest, can be a small win. How does that shift your mindset? How does it open up possibilities for you? Let me know down below, and share any questions you have while you’re at it. Have a great week, everybody.
The post Are You Doing Microworkouts? Here’s Why You Should. appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
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