EXERCISE DOUBLES, EVEN TRIPLES NUMBER OF NEW [BRAIN] CELLS COMPARED TO SEDENTARY MICE

The evidence could not be clearer.  Get up.  Put on your workout clothes and running shoes and run.  Just run.  Have fun but run.  Run for fun.  Count the miles.  Do this every morning.  Track your progress.  Find out your improvements by week's end.  Just do it.

from the New York Times. 

Because we can never have enough reasons to keep exercising, a new study with mice finds that physical activity not only increases the number of new neurons in the brain, it also subtly changes the shape and workings of these cells in ways that might have implications for memory and even delaying the onset of dementia.

This is good.  Increasing the number of new neurons in the brain is a good thing.  

As most of us have heard, our brains are not composed of static, unchanging tissue. Instead, in most animals, including people, the brain is a dynamic, active organ in which new neurons and neural connections are created throughout life, especially in areas of the brain related to memory and thinking.

The brain is dynamic only if you're dynamic.  Get up.  Off your duff.  And get on with a dynamic, energizing day.  

Okay, this next point, if true, is amazing . . . 

This process of creating new neurons, called neurogenesis, can be altered by lifestyle, including physical activity. Many past studies have shown that in laboratory rodents, exercise doubles or even triples the number of new cells produced in adult animals’ brains compared to the brains of animals that are sedentary.

"Exercise doubles . . . even triples the number of new cells produced in adult animals' brains compared to the brains of animals that are sedentary."  So, what's the message?  Don't settle.  Incorporate this in your day.  I love this statement, 

But it has not been clear whether the new brain cells in active animals are somehow different from comparable new neurons in inactive animals or if they are just more numerous.

At least one difference between active and sedentary folks is that you'll have more brain cells!  Could there be a stronger indictment for folks sitting around?  If I had my druthers, I would be up and at 'em all day from running to swimming to hiking.  That is if I had my druthers. 

That question has long interested scientists at the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, who have been examining how running alters the brains and behavior of lab animals.

Last year, in an important study published in NeuroImage, the researchers found for the first time that young brain cells in adult mice that spent a month with running wheels in their cages did seem to be different from those in animals that did not run. For the experiment, the scientists injected a modified rabies vaccine into the animals, where it entered the nervous system and brain. They then tracked and labeled connections between brain cells and learned that compared to the sedentary animals’ brain cells, the runners’ newborn neurons had more and longer dendrites, the snaky tendrils that help to connect the cells into the neural communications network. They also found that more of these connections led to portions of the brain that are important for spatial memory, which is our internal map of where we have been and how we got there.

Interesting.  So the new neurons had more and longer dendrites that build neuronal communication. 

Okay, so these results don't occur until after 1 month. 

This type of memory is often diminished in the early stages of dementia.

But these findings, while intriguing, involved animals that had been running for a month, which is the equivalent of years of physical activity by people. The researchers wondered whether such changes in neurons and connections might actually begin earlier and maybe almost immediately after the animals began to exercise.

Runners' brains teemed with far more new neurons than your aunt or uncle who prefers watching the morning news hours. 

So for the new study, which was published last month in Scientific Reports, most of the same researchers gathered a group of adult, male mice. (Males were used to avoid accounting for the effects of the female reproductive cycle.) The animals were injected with a substance that marks newborn neurons. Half were then allowed to run for a week on wheels in their cages, while the others remained inactive. Afterward, some were also injected with the modified rabies vaccine to track new synapses and connections between the neurons.

When the scientists then microscopically examined brain tissue, they found that the runners’ brains, as expected, teemed with far more new neurons than did the brains of the sedentary animals, even though the runners had been exercising for only a week.

Running makes your brain cells larger and more mature. 

Interestingly, these neurons also looked unique. They were larger and, as in the study of mice that ran for a month, displayed more and longer dendrites than similar neurons in the other animals. In effect, the young neurons in the runners’ brains appeared to be more mature after only a week of exercise than brain cells from inactive animals.

These young cells were better integrated into the overall brain circuitry, too, with more connections into portions of the brain involved in spatial and other types of memory. Most surprising to the scientists, these cells also proved to be less easily activated by neurochemical messages to fire rapidly, which is usually a hallmark of more mature neurons. They remained calmer and less prone to excitability than new neurons in the inactive animals’ brains.

So, wait, what does this mean, "neither [study looked] into whether the running mice thought and remembered differently than mice that were sedentary for most of the day"?  Does this mean that the shape and form were impressive, but the function of these nerves, at least in terms of how they execute learning or memory or other cognitive function, were not determined from this study?  It appears so.

What these differences in cell structure and connection mean for brain function remains uncertain, though, says Henriette van Praag, a principal investigator at the National Institutes of Health and senior author of this and the earlier study. Neither study was designed to look into whether the running mice thought and remembered differently than mice that were sedentary for most of the day.

So it's just a matter of the study being "more evidence" that brain cells are more numerous but with functionality are more, what, vigorous or efficient?

But the current study “provides more pieces of evidence that brain cells produced under running conditions are not just quantitatively but qualitatively different” than other neurons, she says, “and these differences are evident very soon” after exercise begins.

Well, now this is hopeful.  Folks with brain injuries can expect these exercised brain cells to "integrate into and bulk up portions of the brain . . . associated with memory loss and dementia."

Perhaps most important, the new brain cells in the runners tended to integrate into and bulk up portions of the brain that, if damaged by disease, are associated with early memory loss and dementia, she adds.

Oh, but because we're people and the study was done on mice, then the conclusions, all the fanfare or being "BREAKING NEWS" still only lives in the world of theory.

Of course, this experiment used mice, which are not people. While some past neurological studies with people have hinted that exercise might alter our brain structure in similar ways, she says, that possibility is still theoretical.

Still, she says, “I think it is a very good idea for the sake of the brain to be moving and active.” 

I think it's safe to say that running, walking, swimming, hiking, biking, yoga and others are going to build your brain. 

And don't forget the benefits of Benfotiamine to enhance your efforts.  

THE VAGUS NERVE . . . CONNECTS THE BRAIN TO ALMOST ALL THE VITAL ORGANS IN THE BODY

This is a hopeful report.  Terrible about the young man, but also hopeful for him and his family as well.  

from The Guardian, via LewRockwell

A 35-year-old man who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for 15 years has shown signs of consciousness after receiving a pioneering therapy involving nerve stimulation.

The treatment challenges a widely-accepted view that there is no prospect of a patient recovering consciousness if they have been in PVS for longer than 12 months.

Since sustaining severe brain injuries in a car accident, the man had been completely unaware of the world around him. But when fitted with an implant to stimulate the vagus nerve, which travels into the brain stem, the man appeared to flicker back into a state of consciousness.

He started to track objects with his eyes, began to stay awake while being read a story and his eyes opened wide in surprise when the examiner suddenly moved her face close to the patient’s. He could even respond to some simple requests, such as turning his head when asked–although this took about a minute.

Angela Sirigu, who led the work at the Institut des SciencesCognitives Marc Jeannerod in Lyon, France, said: “He is still paralysed, he cannot talk, but he can respond. Now he is more aware.”

Niels Birbaumer, of the University of Tübingen and a pioneer of brain-computer interfaces to help patients with neurological disorders communicate, said the findings, published in the journal Current Biology, raised pressing ethical issues. “Many of these patients may and will have been neglected, and passive euthanasia may happen often in a vegetative state,” he said.

“This paper is a warning to all those believing that this state is hopeless after a year.”

The vagus nerve, which the treatment targeted, connects the brain to almost all the vital organs in the body, running from the brain stem down both sides of the neck, across the chest and into the abdomen. In the brain, it is linked directly to two regions known to play roles in alertness and consciousness.

In surgery lasting about 20 minutes, a small implant was placed around the vagus nerve in the man’s neck. After one month of vagal nerve stimulation, the patient’s attention, movements and brain activity significantly improved and he had shifted into a state of minimal consciousness.

Recordings of brain activity also revealed major changes, with signs of increased electrical communication between brain regions and significantly more activity in areas linked to movement, sensation and awareness.

Similar stimulation has already been shown to help some patients with epilepsy and depression.

Sirigu and her team now hope to apply the same technique to patients with less serious brain injuries, where even more substantial improvements might be possible. There may even be patients, she said, whose cortex (the part of the brain used for cognitive tasks) is intact, but who have brain stem injuries that have led to limited awareness or consciousness.

The findings offer hope to the families of patients in PVS that it may one day be possible to re-establish some basic form of communication. However, some might also question whether such patients would wish to be made more acutely aware of being in a severely injured state.

“I cannot answer to this question,” said Sirigu. “Personally I think it’s better to be aware, even if it’s a bad state, to be conscious of what’s happening. Then you can have a decision if you want to go on or if you want [euthanasia].”

Damian Cruse, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Birmingham, described the findings as “pretty exciting”, adding that in future it might be possible to combine vagal nerve stimulation with other forms of rehabilitation.

“If you can just push the patient over the threshold so they can start responding to external stimulation you can maybe help them follow speech therapy and get them to a level where they can start to communicate,” he said.

During the past decade, scientists have made major advances in communicating with “locked in” patients using various forms of brain-computer interface.

These have allowed paralysed patients, some of whom had been assumed to be in PVS, to answer “yes” or “no” to questions to let their family and friends know their wishes and their state of wellbeing.

But there may be something even more powerful than Vagus Nerve stimulation and it comes in a pill.  It's a fat soluble B Vitamin that comes in a pill, called Benfotiamine.  Bill Sardi has the details.  See this graph:

But the only B vitamin that works on nerve regeneration is the fat soluble B Vitamin called Benfotiamine.  Don't forget that name.  Look for it online and in your health food store.  The nice thing about this product is that the brand name does not matter.  Several foods deplete our Vitamin B stores, coffee, tea, and alcohol are among them.  Still, even if you drink these beverages, if you take the Benfotiamine it means that you're still getting something.  Know, too, that we don't naturally make B1, that we need to get this from our diet.  But if you want to maintain your health, then take the Benfotiamine.  

30 MINUTES OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY 5 DAYS A WEEK REDUCES RISK OF DEATH BY 28%

Largest study on physical activity involving 130,000 people in 17 countries showed that household chores such as vacuuming, or walking to work, provided enough exercise to protect the heart and extend life, with 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week reducing the risk of death by 28%  

Not bad. 

From the New Scientist. 

One in 12 deaths could be prevented with 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week. That’s the conclusion from the world’s largest study of physical activity, which analysed data from more than 130,000 people across 17 countries.

At the start of the study, participants provided information on their socioeconomic status, lifestyle behaviours and medical history. They also answered a questionnaire about the physical activity they complete over a typical week. Participants were followed-up at least every three years to record information about cardiovascular disease and death for almost seven years.

Over the period studied, Scott Lear, from McMaster University in Canada and his colleagues found that 150 minutes of activity per week reduced the risk of death from any cause by 28 per cent and rates of heart disease by a fifth.

Being highly active was associated with even greater benefits: people who spent more than 750 minutes walking briskly each week reduced their risk of premature death by 36 per cent.

Results showed that it was not necessary to run, swim or work out at the gym. Household chores such as vacuuming or scrubbing the floor, or merely walking to work provided enough exercise to protect the heart and extend life.

“Going to the gym is great, but we only have so much time we can spend there. If we can walk to work, or at lunch time, that will help too,” says Lear.

The World Health Organisation recommend that adults aged 18 to 64 do at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity throughout the week, as well as muscle strengthening exercises at least two days a week.

The study found that if the world’s population met these guidelines, 8 per cent of global deaths over seven years would be prevented.

“The clear-cut results reinforce the message that exercise truly is the best medicine at our disposal for reducing the odds of an early death,” says James Rudd, senior lecturer in cardiovascular medicine, at the University of Cambridge. “If a drug company came up with a medicine as effective as exercise, they would have a billion-dollar blockbuster on their hands and a Nobel prize in the post.”

Journal reference: The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31634-3

DIET IS THE 2ND HIGHEST RISK FACTOR FOR EARLY DEATH AFTER SMOKING

from The Guardian.

Poor diet is a factor in one in five deaths around the world, according to the most comprehensive study ever carried out on the subject.

It's the 20% that I found stunning.  I mean I realize that a poor diet, like a fast-food diet, will wreak havoc on our hormones, nerves, muscles, digestion, stamina, and cognition.  But what constitutes a bad diet?  And can a good diet not only eliminate that one in five deaths but can it reverse it, say, to increase one's lifespan by 20%?  

As to what a bad diet is, the Guardian has an answer:

Millions of people are eating the wrong sorts of food for good health. 

Uh-oh.  How many of us have doubted whether that whole grain bagel with cream cheese was not good for us?  I know I did.  I avoid bread like the plague.  It has a sticky effect on my muscles.  

Eating a diet that is low in whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds and fish oils and high in salt raises the risk of an early death, according to the huge and ongoing study Global Burden of Disease.

The study, based at the Institute of Health Metrics andEvaluation at the University of Washington, compiles data from every country in the world and makes informed estimates where there are gaps. Five papers on life expectancy and the causes and risk factors of death and ill health have been published by the Lancet medical journal.

What were the findings?

It finds that people are living longer. Life expectancy in 2016 worldwide was 75.3 years for women and 69.8 for men. Japan has the highest life expectancy at 84 years and the Central African Republic has the lowest at just over 50. In the UK, life expectancy for a man born in 2016 is 79, and for a woman 82.9.

I am sure that there are many factors for the differences, but certainly iron management [here, here, and here] is one reason why women tend to outlive men.  

This was stunning--

Diet is the second highest risk factor for early death after smoking. 

But there are other deadly conditions that are related to eating the wrong foods.  I know that it's not good to eat meat with grains or refined carbohydrates.  Your body actually really, really needs the enzymes in vegetables to help you digest that meat.  And I would not advise the ketogenic diet where you eat a high-fat, adequate meat all the time.  I am sure that coconut oil is good for you.  How much and how often is another thing, regardless if these are "ancient foods."

Other high risks are high blood glucose which can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, high body mass index (BMI) which is a measure of obesity, and high total cholesterol. All of these can be related to eating the wrong foods, although there are also other causes. 

The good doctor agrees with me. 

“This is really large,” Dr Christopher Murray, IHME’s director, told the Guardian. “It is amongst the really big problems in the world. It is a cluster that is getting worse.” While obesity gets attention, he was not sure policymakers were as focused on the area of diet and health as they needed to be.

So Dr. Murray wants less attention given to obesity and more to specific foods eaten for specific conditions or purposes, like energy, weight loss, etc.?  If that is the case, then why not read Dr. Barry Sears books on the Zone Diet?

“That constellation is a really, really big challenge for health and health systems,” he said.

Okay.  No argument there with that extremely general statement. 

The problem is often seen as the spread of western diets, taking over from traditional foods in the developing world. But it is not that simple, says Murray. “Take fruit. It has lots of health benefits but only very wealthy people eat a lot of fruit, with some exceptions.”

Sugary drinks are harmful to health but eating a lot of red meat, the study finds, is not as big a risk to health as failing to eat whole grains. “We need to look really carefully at what are the healthy compounds in diets that provide protection,” he said.  

Well, like most of these health articles they don't really commit to much in the general press, and if they do the claims are often so general so as to not mean much.  In fact, from a psychological standpoint, the ambiguity in the articles themselves misleads people away from precision eating for precise healthy goals and toward binge or junk eating.  Note what Dr. Murray just said, "Sugary drinks are harmful to health but eating a lot of red meat, the study finds, is not as big a risk to health as failing to eat whole grains."  The article started out by saying  

Eating a diet that is low in whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds and fish oils and high in salt raises the risk of an early death, according to the huge and ongoing study Global Burden of Disease.

And now Dr. Murray, the IHME’s director, calls for people to eat "whole grains."  Phenomenal.  Phenomenally bad.  Is this typical of The Guardian to gas its readers? 

Prof John Newton, director of health improvement at Public Health  England, said the studies show how quickly diet and obesity-related disease is spreading around the world. “I don’t think people realize how quickly the focus is shifting towards non-communicable disease [such as cancer, heart disease and stroke] and diseases that come with development, in particular related to poor diet. The numbers are quite shocking in my view,” he said.

That sounds like a sales pitch for sustainability.

The UK tracks childhood obesity through the school measurement program and has brought in measures to try to tackle it. “But no country in the world has been able to solve the problem and it is a concern that we really need to think about tackling globally,” he said.

No one has "tackled it" because food, like so many personal decision a person makes in his daily life is, well, personal.  

Today, 72% of deaths are from non-communicable diseases for which obesity and diet are among the risk factors, with ischemic heart disease as the leading cause worldwide of early deaths, including in the UK. Lung cancer, stroke, lung disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder) and Alzheimer’s are the other main causes in the UK.

So what?  That paragraph reads like something dated in 1982.  There is some news of optimism here:

The success story is children under five. In 2016, for the first time in modern history, fewer than 5 million children under five died in one year – a significant fall compared with 1990, when 11 million died. Increased education for women, less poverty, having fewer children, vaccinations, anti-malaria bed-nets, improved water and sanitation are among the changes in low-income countries that have brought the death rate down, thanks to development aid. 

See, the last part of that paragraph, particularly the part about development aid, sounded to me a lot like a pitch for sustainability.  

People are living longer but spending more years in ill health. 

Maybe because they've not managed the accumulation of heavy minerals, like iron and calcium, well. 

Obesity is one of the major reasons. More than a billion people worldwide are living with mental health and substance misuse disorders. Depression  features in the top 10 causes of ill health in all but four countries.

“Our findings indicate people are living longer and, over the past decade, we identified substantial progress in driving down death rates from some of the world’s most pernicious diseases and conditions, such as under age-five mortality and malaria,” said Murray “Yet, despite this progress, we are facing a triad of trouble holding back many nations and communities – obesity, conflict, and mental illness, including substance use disorders.”

By adding a reference to "conflict," it has become clearer that this article is less about health than it is about a call for more Development Aid or Farm Aid or Aid by any other name from the UK or the US.  And as Dr. Murray calls for more aid, he does not heed the cautionary tale on aid from experts on the ground.  Aid does not work, one, to develop those countries.  See here.  

And if development is stymied because of the aid, then how is aid going to reduce obesity?  On US Aid, see Michael S. Rozeff

If the U.S. government props up client states with aid, floods their markets with American agricultural goods, underwrites military purchases, introduces Keynesian economic practices, and provides disaster aid, this is supposed to make the people wealthier and reduce political strife. If the country becomes more indebted to the IMF and World Bank, building unprofitable signature projects, this is supposed to raise living standards, making people content and happy. And all of that improvement, which actually doesn’t happen, is supposed to make Americans more secure and prosperous, a very far-fetched theory.

Intra-domestic wealth transfers in the U.S. likewise have done more harm than good, producing greater dependency, worse education, more red tape, and higher debt while undercutting private capital growth that might have involved job creation. Why are we not to expect that foreign wealth transfers are likewise doing more harm than good?

USAID was enacted under the theory that reducing poverty would reduce the appeal of communism. That theory was wrong even when communism was viewed as a threat to America. It’s completely out of date now.

This is why for me any discussion about the insertion or the insinuation of foreign is fraught with suspicion.  What measurable good comes from it and to whom is that good accountable?

In the UK, the concern is particularly about the increase in ill-health that prevents people from working or having a fulfilling life, said Newton.  

Okay, this is just startling.  Since when did pundits or bureaucrats or politicians ever worry about its citizens from, and let me quote, "having a fulfilling life"?  Really?  Laughable.

A man in the UK born in 2016 can expect only 69 years in good health and a woman 71 years.

Same for the U.S.  So what?

“This is yet another reminder that while we’re living longer, much of that extra time is spent in ill-health. It underlines the importance of preventing the conditions that keep people out of work and put their long term health in jeopardy, like musculoskeletal problems, poor hearing and mental ill health. Our priority is to help people, including during the crucial early years of life and in middle age, to give them the best chance of a long and healthy later life,” he said.  

"Our priority is to help people"?  Really?  Which people?  Those cronies connected to Aid and Development programs or former Prime Minister, Tony Blair?   

Other books by Dambisa Moyo. 

"deficiency of vitamin D results in poor muscular tone which may predict the need for C-Section"

It is hard to deny any longer the remarkable protective benefits of Vitamin D3.  There is even a website dedicated to its information and application, called the VitaminDCouncil.  The very first remedy that I'd heard improved by Vitamin D3 was the seasonal affective light disorder or SAD for short.  Always with the acronyms.  The prescription for this condition ranges between 1,000 to 4,000 IUs.  I don't know what is enough, but I do know that taking a lot more during the day is more beneficial.  Now you don't take 10,000 IUs all at once.  But taking 3,000 to 5,000 IUs three times a day will put your skin, your bones, and your brain in excellent condition.  

Why do we take vitamins to begin with?  To improve conditions without using pharmaceutical drugs, right; that, and to see if supplements can help us circumvent surgery.  Bill Sardi has an 2010 article on just this topic, "How to Avoid Ten Common Surgical Procedures With Dietary Supplements."  In this article he explains the cause why some women require a C-Section and why their 

On C-Sections, he writes

Of great interest is a recent report showing a deficiency of vitamin D results in poor muscular tone which may predict the need for C-Section.  Women with low Vitamin D levels were nearly three-times more likely toundergo C-Sections.  Vitamin D supplementation is suggested throughout pregnancy.  The 400-IU recommendation is insufficient to raise blood levels.  Daily doses of 2000IU of supplemental Vitamin D, and possibly 5,000 IU, are now suggested.  

Just as important were Sardi’spoints on Tonsillectomy.  He writes

Tonsillectomy has long been considered a “cash cow” for throat surgeons.  For more than seven decades physicians have debated whether surgical removal of tonsils in young children is beneficial.  Clearly, many needless tonsillectomies continue to be performed.  A recent hypothesis links tonsillectomy with low levels of Vitamin D.  With the realization that modern medicine offers nothing in regards to prevention, Vitamin D therapy and prevention should be explored and practiced.