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Almost any amount of moderate physical activity in mid- or late life reduced the odds of mild cognitive impairment by 30% to 40% in an ongoing cohort study, researchers reported.

Men and women derived similar benefit, which was limited to moderate exercise — not light or vigorous physical activity, investigators wrote in the January Archives of Neurology.

“Our findings contribute to the growing body of literature that indicates the potentially beneficial relationship between physical exercise and cognition,” Yonas E. Geda, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and colleagues concluded. “A future population-based cohort study is needed to confirm whether physical exercise is associated with decreased risk of incident mild cognitive impairment.”

Meanwhile, a small, separate interventional study described in the same journal showed that six months of high-intensity aerobic exercise was associated with significant improvement in executive function in older women at increased risk of cognitive decline, but not in older men.

Mild cognitive impairment confers a five- to 10-fold increased risk of dementia compared with normal cognition. Observational studies have shown that physical activity may protect against dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and some evidence suggests that exercise for individuals with mild cognitive impairment offers some protection, too, the authors wrote.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

It has been known for quite some time that light can make a person suffering a migraine to experience more pain, but now we know why. A recent study showed a specific group of cells that trigger a pain reaction when they are hit by light. The cells are located in the optic nerve area towards the back of the eyes.

The study included two groups of 20 people each. The first group was totally blind and were not able to sense light. The second group was considered legally blind, meaning they could sense light but not actually see any clear images. The first group did not experience any additional or more intense pain when they were subjected to different strengths of light waves. The second group was sensitive to the light, especially the grey or blue wavelengths.

This information may not sound like anything groundbreaking but researchers can now begin to work on a medicine that blocks the optic cells from relaying pain messages to the brain.

The study was conducted by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Rami Burstein and Rodrigo Noseda led the study and have published their findings in the online publication, Nature Neuroscience.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

In the same week that would-be quitters got the depressing news that they’re at higher risk of developing diabetes for roughly a decade after stopping smoking, a study published Thursday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute has made a remarkable discovery:

Positive messages are a better way to help you quit!

It turns out that phone counselors staffing Quitlines, which are an increasingly popular and effective way to support smokers in kicking the habit, might be more effective if they reframed their comments to be positive, a study conducted by Yale University researchers found.

So instead of telling a smoker in the grips of nicotine withdrawal, “you gotta resist the urge to light up, or else you’ll be more likely to die an early and painful death,” the counselor might say, “if you resist the urge to light up, you’re very likely to live a longer life!”

Whodathunkit?

Actually, the effectiveness of scary versus positive messages in discouraging people from smoking is very much an active subject of research right now. With its new regulatory powers over tobacco, the Food and Drug Administration is empowered to dictate that cigarette packaging has prominent warnings about the dangers of smoking or the importance of quitting. Amid growing evidence that scary, graphic images of blackened lungs and death actually backfire, the agency is deliberating just what kinds of messages will sway consumers best from buying cigarettes. 

The Yale study found that the consistent delivery of such “gain-framed” exhortations to quit made smokers using the quit-lines more likely to attempt a program of smoking cessation and more likely to have continued abstaining from cigarettes when they were contacted two weeks later.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

-Vivus Inc.’s (VVUS) experimental anti-obesity drug Qnexa was shown to reduce sleep apnea, when breathing stops briefly during sleep, by 69% in a mid-stage trial.

While the data are preliminary and based on a small set of patients, the results could help Qnexa eventually become the first drug for the condition, currently treated only by devices, and may further bolster Vivus’s resume in its search for a Big Pharma partner for the anti-obesity drug.

Vivus is one of three drug developers hoping to get regulatory approval of new oral obesity treatments, along with Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. (OREX) and Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ARNA). Vivus, based in Mountain View, Calif., recently submitted a new drug application to the Food and Drug Administration for that use.

Apnea is the decrease or complete halt in breathing during sleep. It causes sleep deprivation and is associated with a number of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

Obesity is the major factor in the development of sleep apnea, Vivus noted on a conference call Thursday, so it may not come as a surprise that a weight-loss treatment helps treat the sleep disorder. Even so, any drug company would need FDA approval to market a drug for that use.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

U.S. researchers have identified 10 locations in California that have double the rates of autism found in surrounding areas, and these clusters were located in neighborhoods with high concentrations of white, highly educated parents.

Researchers at the University of California Davis had hoped to uncover pockets of autism that might reveal clues about triggers in the environment that could explain rising rates of autism, which affects as many as one in 110 U.S. children.

But the findings likely say more about the U.S. healthcare system than the causes of autism, said researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto of UC Davis’ MIND Institute, whose study will be released online on Wednesday in the journal Autism Research.

Advocacy groups have been clamoring for treatment options and for better research to show what might be causing an apparent increase in autism cases.

Hertz-Picciotto and colleagues used a research technique that has been effective at identifying cancer clusters.

“This kind of analysis sometimes turns up clues about environmental factors,” she said in a telephone interview.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

A new study shows only half of Americans with depression receive any type of treatment for it, and certain minorities may face even greater difficulties in getting the treatment they need.

Researchers found only one in five Americans suffering from clinical depression receives treatment consistent with recommended guidelines.

In addition, Mexican-Americans, Caribbean blacks, and African-Americans with depression were half as likely as others to receive any type of depression treatment or the recommended care.

“Although depression is a leading cause of disability in the United States, few Americans with recent major depression receive any form of standard care and even fewer receive care that is concordant with the American Psychiatric Association guideline,” write researcher Hector M. González, PhD, of Wayne State University in Detroit, and colleagues in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com

A new study shows that teens who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to suffer from depression and have suicidal thoughts — in some cases — much more likely.

Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York found that earlier bedtimes can help protect adolescents from such tendencies, reports CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton.

That flies in the face of the common perception that teens need less sleep than people in other age groups.

It’s been estimated that adolescents need a little more than nine hours of sleep per night.

Those in the study whose parents set bedtimes of midnight or later were 24 percent more likely to suffer from depression and 20 percent more apt to have thoughts of suicide, compared to those with bedtimes of 10 p.m. or earlier, the researchers report in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Sleep.

And those who got five hours of sleep or less per night were 71 percent more likely to report being depressed, and 40 percent more likely to think of suicide.

Doug

CDIstaffing.com