Published: October 5, 2012
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Can you bite into an apple? If so, you are more likely to maintain mental abilities, according to new research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
The population is ageing, and the older we become the more likely it is that we risk deterioration of our cognitive functions, such as memory, decision-making and problem solving. Research indicates several possible contributors to these changes, with several studies demonstrating an association between not having teeth and loss of cognitive function and a higher risk of dementia.
One reason for this could be that few or no teeth makes chewing difficult, which leads to a reduction in the blood flow to the brain. However, to date there has been no direct investigation into the significance of chewing ability in a national representative sample of elderly people.
Now a team comprised of researchers from the Department of Dental Medicine and the Aging Research Center (ARC) at Karolinska Institutet and from Karlstad University in Sweden have looked at tooth loss, chewing ability and cognitive function in a random nationwide sample of 557 people aged 77 or older. They found that those who had difficulty chewing hard food such as apples had a significantly higher risk of developing cognitive impairments. This correlation remained even when controlling for sex, age, education and mental health problems, variables that are often reported to impact on cognition. Whether chewing ability was sustained with natural teeth or dentures also had no bearing on the effect.
The results are published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS). The study was financed with grants from several funds, including the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research and the Swedish Research Council.
‘Chewing Ability and Tooth Loss: Association with Cognitive Impairment in an Elderly Population Study’, Duangjai Lexomboon, Mats Trulsson, Inger Wårdh & Marti G. Parker, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, online early view 4 October 2012.
Karolinska Institutet
In this podcast, a story about obsession, creativity, and a strange symmetry between a biologist and a composer that revolves around one famously repetitive piece of music.
Anne Adams was a brilliant biologist. But when her son Alex was in a bad car accident, she decided to stay home to help him recover. And then, rather suddenly, she decided to quit science altogether and become a full-time artist. After that, her husband Robert Adams tells us, she just painted and painted and painted. First houses and buildings, then a series of paintings involving strawberries, and then … “Bolero.”
At some point, Anne became obsessed with Maurice Ravel’s famous composition and decided to put an elaborate visual rendition of the song to canvas. She called it “Unraveling Bolero.” But at the time, she had no idea that both she and Ravel would themselves unravel shortly after their experiences with this odd piece of music. Arbie Orenstein tells Jad what happened to Ravel after he wrote “Bolero,” and neurologist Bruce Miller andJonah Lehrer helps us understand how, for both Anne and Ravel, “Bolero” might have been the first symptom of a deadly disease.
ᔥRadiolab podcast
A powerful and moving video ~ Michael French has frontotemporal dementia, for which there is no treatment. As his condition deteriorated, his wife, Ruth, had to move him to a nursing home, where she spends most days.
New York Times
Published: December 6, 2011
Older women with weaker circadian rhythms, who are less physically active or are more active later in the day are more likely to develop dementia or mild cognitive impairment than women who have a more robust circadian rhythm or are more physically active earlier in the day. That’s the finding of a new study in the latest issue of the Annals of Neurology.
“We’ve known for some time that circadian rhythms, what people often refer to as the “body clock”, can have an impact on our brain and our ability to function normally,” says Greg Tranah, PhD., a scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute – part of the Sutter Health network – and the lead author of the study. “What our findings suggest is that future interventions such as increased physical activity or using light exposure interventions to influence circadian rhythms, could help influence cognitive outcomes in older women.”
The researchers collected data on activity and circadian rhythm from 1,282 healthy women, all over the age of 75, who were taking part in the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures. All the women underwent a series of neuropsychological tests to ensure they had no evidence of cognitive or brain problems. At the end of five years 15 percent of the women had developed dementia and 24 percent had some form of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Those women who had weaker circadian rhythm activity, lower levels of activity, or whose peak level of activity was later in the day, were at highest risk of developing dementia or MCI. [continue reading…]
