Tag Archives: Health

Aging, Exercise, Health, Studies

Health: Three Exercise Benefits For The Brain

Leave a comment

Memory

Many studies suggest that exercise can help protect our memory as we age. This is because exercise has been shown to prevent the loss of total brain volume (which can lead to lower cognitive function), as well as preventing shrinkage in specific brain regions associated with memory. For example, one magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan study revealed that in older adults, six months of exercise training increases brain volume.

Another study showed that shrinkage of the hippocampus (a brain region essential for learning and memory) in older people can be reversed by regular walking. This change was accompanied by improved memory function and an increase of the protein brain-derived neutropic factor (BDNF) in the bloodstream.

Blood vessels

The brain is highly dependent on blood flow, receiving approximately 15% of the body’s entire supply – despite being only 2-3% of our body’s total mass. This is because our nervous tissues need a constant supply of oxygen to function and survive. When neurons become more active, blood flow in the region where these neurons are located increases to meet demand. As such, maintaining a healthy brain depends on maintaining a healthy network of blood vessels.

Regular exercise increases the growth of new blood vessels in the brain regions where neurogenesis occurs, providing the increased blood supply that supports the development of these new neurons. Exercise also improves the health and function of existing blood vessels, ensuring that brain tissue consistently receives adequate blood supply to meet its needs and preserve its function.

Inflammation

Recently, a growing body of research has centred on microglia, which are the resident immune cells of the brain. Their main function is to constantly check the brain for potential threats from microbes or dying or damaged cells, and to clear any damage they find.

With age, normal immune function declines and chronic, low-level inflammation occurs in body organs, including the brain, where it increases risk of neurodegenerative disease, such as Alzheimer’s disease. As we age, microglia become less efficient at clearing damage, and less able to prevent disease and inflammation. This means neuroinflammation can progress, impairing brain functions – including memory.

Read more

Health, Medicine, Science, Videos

Covid-19 News: How ‘Moderna’s mRNA-1273 Vaccine’ Works (Video)

Video Leave a comment

Early data from US biotech Moderna has revealed that its Covid-19 vaccine candidate is 94.5 per cent effective, raising hopes that a range of immunisations will be available to help end the pandemic. The interim analysis of the vaccine, currently known as mRNA-1273, comes after 95 trial participants contracted Covid-19, including just five who were given the coronavirus jab. While the data was published via a press release, it includes significant details that remain unclear around the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – which uses the same mRNA technology to target the coronavirus spike protein and an immune response.

Health, Medicine, Science, Videos

Health: ‘A Changing Climate, Changes Disease’

Video Leave a comment

In recent decades, the worldwide burden of infectious disease has fallen, thanks to sanitation, hygiene, and prevention and control efforts. But the covid-19 pandemic shows how great a threat to global health remains – particularly as the climate crisis continues to affect disease spread and our response in myriad ways. Increasing temperatures are expanding the areas where diseases such as malaria and dengue thrive. More flooding and drought increases disease risk. Hygiene requires access to clean water. Further urbanization and migration related to climate change will also complicate prevention and control. The BMJ has published “The time is now” collection, calling for the strengthening of the global response to climate change and communicable disease. https://www.bmj.com/communicable-dise…

Aging, Health, Medicine, Retirement

Retirement: Medicare, Medigap & Part D – Seniors Find Choices “Dizzying”

Leave a comment

If you’re enrolled only in original Medicare with a Medigap supplemental plan, and don’t use a drug plan, there’s no need to re-evaluate your coverage, experts say. But Part D drug plans should be reviewed annually. The same applies to Advantage plans, which often wrap in prescription coverage and can make changes to their rosters of in-network health care providers.

“The amount of information that consumers need to grasp is dizzying, and it turns them off from doing a search,” Mr. Riccardi said. “They feel paralyzed about making a choice, and some just don’t think there is a more affordable plan out there for them.”

November 13, 2020

When creation of the prescription drug benefit was being debated, progressive Medicare advocates fought to expand the existing program to include drug coverage, funded by a standard premium, similar to the structure of Part B. The standard Part B premium this year is $144.60; the only exceptions to that are high-income enrollees, who pay special income-related surcharges, and very low-income enrollees, who are eligible for special subsidies to help them meet Medicare costs.

“Given the enormous Medicare population that could be negotiated for, I think most drugs could be offered through a standard Medicare plan,” said Judith A. Stein, executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

“Instead, we have this very fragmented system that assumes very savvy, active consumers will somehow shop among dozens of plan options to see what drugs are available and at what cost with all the myriad co-pays and cost-sharing options,” she added.

Advocates like Ms. Stein also urged controlling program costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies — something the legislation that created Part D forbids.

Read full article in NY Times

Aging, Health, News, Podcasts

Health Podcasts: What Can We Do To Age Well

Audio Leave a comment

BBC Radio 4 (July 30, 2024): From the Hay Festival, James and a panel of experts explain what we can all do to help ourselves age well. We discover what’s going on in our bodies when we age, the difference between biological and chronological age, as well as getting the audience moving for a physical test.

James is joined by gerontologist Sarah Harper from the University of Oxford, biomedical scientist Georgina Ellison-Hughes from King’s College London, and doctor Norman Lazarus to understand how exercise, diet, and mental health all have a part to play in how we age.

Digital, Health, Medicine, Technology

Health: ‘Risks & Benefits Of AI Revolution In Medicine’

Leave a comment

It has taken time — some say far too long — but medicine stands on the brink of an AI revolution. In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Isaac Kohane, head of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Biomedical Informatics, and his co-authors say that AI will indeed make it possible to bring all medical knowledge to bear in service of any case.

Properly designed AI also has the potential to make our health care system more efficient and less expensive, ease the paperwork burden that has more and more doctors considering new careers, fill the gaping holes in access to quality care in the world’s poorest places, and, among many other things, serve as an unblinking watchdog on the lookout for the medical errors that kill an estimated 200,000 people and cost $1.9 billion annually.

“I’m convinced that the implementation of AI in medicine will be one of the things that change the way care is delivered going forward,” said David Bates, chief of internal medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It’s clear that clinicians don’t make as good decisions as they could. If they had support to make better decisions, they could do a better job.”

Read more