A SIP OF GOOD NEWS, AT LEAST FOR COFFEE LOVERS

It's rare to find out that something you like is actually good for you. But today we can report that coffee really is. Here's the good news, freshly poured:

As part of a large multi-year study, researchers were able to compare coffee consumption and a variety of health outcomes for more than 185,000 people in California and Hawaii. As reported in the July 11, 2021 issue of the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine, over the course of the study coffee drinkers lived longer and suffered fewer cases of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, respiratory illness and kidney disease. 

Credit: stokpik/Pixabay

How large were these benefits? On the average people were followed for 16 years, starting at ages from 45 to 75. Over the course of the study 31 percent of the participants died, with cardiovascular disease and cancer being the biggest risks. People who drank one cup of coffee a day were 12 percent less likely to die during the study period than non-coffee-drinkers, and people who drank two or three cups per day were 18 percent less likely to die. 

So not only did coffee add years to people's lives, it also added years of good health.

Veronica Setiawan, an associate professor of preventative medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine, and the study's lead author, is impressed enough with these findings that she's suggesting that non-coffee-drinkers reconsider. "We cannot say drinking coffee will prolong your life, but we see an association," she says. "If you like to drink coffee, drink up! If you're not a coffee drinker, then you need to consider if you should start."

One of this study's strongest points is the rich ethnic mix of its participants. It enrolled large cohorts of African-Americans, Native Hawaiians, Japanese-Americans, Latinos and whites. It turned out that all of these groups showed comparable benefits from coffee consumption. "This study is the largest of its kind and includes minorities who have very different lifestyles," Setiawan says. "Seeing a similar pattern across different populations gives stronger biological backing to the argument that coffee is good for you whether you are white, African-American, Lationo or Asian."

An interesting wrinkle was the finding that it made no difference whether participants drank caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee. Instead, Setiawan suspects antioxidants and other chemicals in coffee provide the health benefits she found. "Coffee contains a lot of antioxidants and phenolic compounds that play an important role in cancer prevention," she says.  "Although this study does not show causation or point to what chemicals in coffee may have this 'elixir effect,' it is clear that coffee can be incorporated into a healthy diet and lifestyle."

As I finish off my third cup of Joe for the day, it's great to be able to report some news that put a smile on my face, and I suspect will do the same for many others as well.

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REA 7/20/21

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And, as a bonus, another large long-term study finds that, contrary to its reputation, coffee doesn't add to the risk of developing cardiac arrhythmias. In fact, each additional daily cup of coffee was associated with a 3 percent reduction in the incidence of arrhythmia.

However, there really can be too much of a good thing. Just-published research from Australia indicates that people who drink more than six cups of coffee a day are putting themselves at significantly higher risk of stroke and dementia. The devil, it seems, is in the dose.

HOW GOOD IS EXERCISE FOR SENIORS? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS!

A new review of reviews of the benefits of exercise tells us that exercise is as close as we're likely to get to a panacea.

Seniors exercising

Credit: Asahia/Wikimedia Commons

Writing in the Scandanavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, an international team of researchers reviewed all of the highest quality reviews and meta-analyses to date on the relationship between exercise and health in people in their sixties or older. The smallest group studied comprised 855 individuals, while the largest study tracked more than 400,000. The results are impressive:

If you're 60 or more and physically active, compared to your less-active peers, you're:

     22 percent less likely to die from any cause during a comparable time period

     25 to 40 percent less likely die from cardiovascular disease

     12 percent less likely to develop breast or prostate cancer

     29 to 39 percent less likely to fracture a bone

     50 percent less likely to become disabled (unable to perform basic activities              of daily living)

     26 to 38 percent less likely to experience cognitive decline or impairment

     32 to 42 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's Disease

     14 to 21 percent less likely to develop some other kind of dementia

     17 to 21 percent less likely to suffer from depression

      and significantly more likely to experience healthy aging, a better
      quality of life and more years spent in good mental and physical health.

To some extent, the range of outcomes comes from different studies using different criteria. However, for most of these relationships, more exercise produced better outcomes. The researchers conclude that any amount of physical activity has some benefit, but recommend at least 75 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous physical activity.

"Physical activity plays a key role in the 'compression of morbidity,'" the authors write, "decreasing the time spent in ill-health as people age and ensuring that an increase in life expectancy is also an increase in life-time spent in good health."

Not a bad payoff for investing at 10 to 15 minutes a day exercising.

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REA




   

PUTTING THE NUT INTO NUTRITION--ESPECIALLY FOR YOUR BRAIN

This is certainly not the most serious thing I could be writing about, what with the Mueller report finally coming to a fizzling end, Venezuela falling into chaos, the Middle East arguably growing even more explosive, decades of relative restraint on the development and potential use of nuclear weapons being tossed aside by the US and Russia, and, lest we forget, climate change.

Still, a little bit of actually useful information is probably worthy of at least a few moments of your attention.

Here's the snippet of news: If you're over 55 and you eat more than 10 grams (.35 oz or 2 teaspoons) of nuts every day, you're 40 percent more likely to enjoy good thinking and memory than your non-nut-consuming peers.

Can a few peanuts a day keep senility away?

Credit: Aney/Wikimedia

This was the main finding in a study of almost 5000 Chinese seniors. Eating more than 10 grams of nuts every day--mostly peanuts for this study group--boosted cognition by about two-thirds of a point as measured on a 40 point scale. That's equivalent to shaving off two to three years of age.

With a greying population putting millions of people at risk of dementia, any intervention that can slow brain ageing can be of great value to individuals and to society as a whole.

Some people will pay thousands of dollars for surgery to make them look a few years younger. How much is it worth to you to have your brain actually work like it did when you were a few years younger? If the "cost" is munching a few teaspoons of nuts every day, it would seem to be extremely well worth it.

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You can reference the research report in the Journal of Nutrition, Health & Ageing here.

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YOU KNOW THOSE BRAIN-TRAINING EXERCISES--THEY MAY ACTUALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE

If you type "brain training exercises" or "brain training games" into a search engine, you'll get millions of hits. Companies offering games and exercise promising to ward off failing memory, loss of concentration and other signs of cognitive decline have become big business. These exercises have also become controversial, with some studies and experts highly critical of their usefulness.

Brain-training research, Brain and Mind Centre/Credit: University of Sydney

A new study published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry can shed some light on this issue. Researchers at the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia, reviewed more than twenty years worth of research on the effects of computerized cognitive training (CCT). They selected only randomized clinical studies, and used the statistical technique of meta-analysis to combine the results. 

Their findings are surprisingly clear--for people with mild cognitive impairment, structured brain training can boost general thinking skills, attention, working or short-term memory, verbal long-term memory, learning and mood. 

Mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, represents a kind of middle ground between the kinds of memory and other cognitive problems that occur with normal ageing and the more severe changes seen in Alzheimer's disease and other full-blown dementias. Typically about 10 percent of people diagnosed with MCI develop Alzheimer's or another form of dementia within a year.

In general, the kinds of computerized games and challenges studied did not help after people had already been diagnosed with dementia. Intriguingly, however, three studies that used more immersive technology such as Nintendo's Wii or virtual reality did show positive results even then--a lead well worth following.

Although emphasizing that further research is needed to see if the clear improvements caused by these cognitive exercise programs delay or perhaps in some cases prevent dementia, the researchers are encouraged. "Our research shows that brain training can maintain or even improve cognitive skills among older people at very high risk of cognitive decline," says neuroscientist Amit Lampit, who lead the study. "and it's an inexpensive and safe treatment."

With recent research also showing that structured physical exercises can also improve cognitive functioning in people with MCI (see my blog entry for 10/25/16), we can see the outline of safe and inexpensive interventions that may keep people's brains healthy and functioning well even as they age.

Pesticide Exposure, Cognitive Decline and Dementia Risk

When I worked as a neuropsychologist, I got to see first hand how even mild cognitive impairment could wreak havoc in a person's life. Of course Alzheimer's disease or other full-fledged dementias are even more destructive.

That's why a recently published study linking long-term pesticide exposure to cognitive impairment and, the researchers suspect, upping the risk of a person developing dementia, caught my attention.

You can read a summary of the research, which tracked over 600 French vineyard workers over time, on Suite101, by clicking here.

And, if you want, you can download the original article, in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, at this URL.

Robert Adler