Exercise Keeps Women's Minds in Shape

  By Karla Gale

  PHILADELPHIA (Reuters Health) - If it has been hard to get motivated for your morning walk, new
  research findings may inspire you to lace up your sport shoes. A study involving nearly 6,000 women
  shows that exercise keeps your mind sharp as you age.

  ``Despite their differences, the relationship between physical activity and cognitive decline was found
  for all subgroups,'' Yaffe said. ``So it wasn't a matter of just one subgroup doing all the activity.''

  To keep neurons in tip-top shape, Yaffe recommends playing tennis a couple times a week, walking a
  mile each day or even playing golf once a week.

Brain atrophy--a signal of brain cell death--has previously been
  linked with drinking. It is possible that while alcohol can ward off
  stroke by improving cholesterol levels or helping to thin the
  blood, it can also lead to brain atrophy by directly injuring cells,
  the report indicates.
  SOURCE: Stroke 2001;32.

Tuesday April 24, 2001 

Study: Big-Headed May Keep Brain  Power Longer

  NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -    Individuals with larger brains may be protected from the normal decline in mental abilities that comes with age, researchers report. One explanation for the finding may be the fact that people with bigger brains can afford the natural loss of cells as they age...  It turned out that older people with smaller heads performed worse than those with bigger heads on tests of thinking ability and mental speed...  However, there was no relationship between head size and memory,  according to the report.

NEW YORK, Oct 15,99 (Reuters Health) -- In a dramatic challenge to previous neurological theory, results of studies in monkeys suggest that new brain cells are added to the primate brain each day.... Gould and Gross' team found newly developed cells in three areas of the cortex......recent research had suggested that  the brains of more primitive animals, including songbirds, could grow new cells. The  Princeton findings suggest that this process may occur in primates -- including humans -- as well. ``If  memories are formed from experiences, these experience(s) must produce changes in the
 brain,'' Gould speculated in a Princeton statement.

NEW YORK, Sep 20 (Reuters Health) -- For the first time, scientists have shown that brain cell changes
associated with aging and memory loss are potentially reversible in animals.

The investigators found that by surgically reducing stress hormone production, the growth of new nerve cells was restored in the brains of aged rats to the same extent as it occurs in younger rats.

These findings indicate that the ability of the brain to generate new nerve cells continues into old age, but that it is slowed down
by high levels of stress hormones, they note.

 In experiments with mice, researchers damaged a specific set of mature nerve cells in the
 cerebral cortex, and found that primitive cells known as neural precursors began to divide in
 an effort to replace the damaged cells.

  By Suzanne Rostler

  NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - What do engineers use for birth control? Their personalities!

  Whether you found this joke funny might reveal something about the way your brain works, according to
  researchers. Their study, which investigated how the human brain processes this joke and 29 others, identified a
  particular area of the brain that appears to be involved in your sense of humor.

NEW YORK, Aug 05 (Reuters Health) -- SOURCE: Psychosomatic Medicine 1999;61:524-531.

Alcohol appears to be a double-edged sword when it comes to the effect it has on the brain of older people, so results of a recent study suggest. Researchers found that light, and even fairly moderate drinking, appears to protect the elderly from developing small blockages in the blood vessels of the brain known as "silent strokes", and therefore lowers their risk of stroke. However, alcohol consumption at any level can also cause brain atrophy (shrinking of the brain) by causing damage to brain cells that results in their destruction. The researchers conclude that the complex relationship that alcohol seems to have with the brain makes it impossible to make public health recommendations on alcohol consumption, especially for the elderly.

SOURCE/REFERENCE: Stroke 2001 32: 1939-1946

DALLAS, Dec. 5, 2003 – Consuming low to moderate amounts of alcohol may be linked to decreased brain size in middle-aged adults, according to a new study published in today’s rapid access issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. 

The new study also showed that low to moderate alcohol intake did not lower their stroke risk, as some previous studies found.

The bad news is that every drink is associated with greater brain shrinkage, a condition called atrophy, says lead researcher Kenneth J. Mukamal, M.D., M.P.H., an instructor at Harvard Medical School and associate in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Researchers studied 3,376 individuals over age 65, who were part of a nationwide study called the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS).

Alcohol and the Brain

It is a supposed scientific fact that alcohol kills brain cells. And presumably, those who would suffer this damage the most would be drinkers in their 70s and 80s who had been at it for decades.

But a new Australian study of 209 elderly men, 178 of whom used alcohol, revealed not a single sign of intellectual impairment or brain atrophy that could be related to the amount of alcohol they regularly consumed.

[RG: YES, BUT HOW WAS THEIR MOOD, AND EXPERIENCE OF HAPPINESS?]

Alcohol abuse shrinks, lightens the brain/6-20-2005

Researchers have been able to map the damage caused to the brain by chronic consumption of alcohol and the results are not encouraging to alcoholics.

New research is beginning to explain how the brains of alcoholics become smaller and lighter compared to those of non-drinkers, and what functions may be lost due to chronic drinking. Scientists believe a number of factors — including alcohol’s toxic byproducts, malnutrition, even cirrhosis of the liver — interact in complex ways to cause brain damage. ... Alcohol appears to be particularly damaging to the “white matter” or “hard wiring” — fat-insulated nerve fibers that allow brain cells to rapidly communicate with other parts of the brain... “The most important permanent structural change is nerve-cell loss,” Harper said. “Some nerve cells cannot be replaced — those in the frontal cortex, the cerebellum and several regions deep in the brain.”...

...continuous drinking for as little as eight weeks can produce deficits in learning and memory that continue for up to 12 weeks after drinking stops. ... “Drinking doesn’t just produce a hangover,” said D. Allan Butterfield, a professor of biological and physical chemistry at the University of Kentucky. “Chronic drinking may lead to permanent cognitive deficits,” he added, noting that the findings should be of particular concern to college students who engage in binge drinking.

Brain Cells Killed During Binge Drinking  Episodes Wed Apr 17, 2002 1:18 PM ET

By Melissa Schorr

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A few days of binge drinking can lead to the almost immediate death of brain cells, new research conducted in laboratory animals confirms.  "Very high alcohol consumption, even for a short period of time, damages the brain," study lead author Dr. Fulton T. Crews, professor of pharmacology and director of the center for alcohol studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Reuters Health. 

"It might not just be a one-day celebration," he warned. "Once you've lost these brain cells, they're probably gone forever--how would you ever know?"

  NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A panel of physicians urged doctors Monday to downplay the potential heart-healthy effects of red wine and encourage patients to exercise and eat more fruits and vegetables.

But it remains unclear whether components in wine or the heart-healthy lifestyles of wine lovers are behind this boost in cardiac protection, say researchers writing in the January 23 issue of Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association (news - web sites) (AHA).

``Alcohol is an addictive substance and adverse effects of drinking occur at more moderate levels in some
  individuals,'' write Dr. Ira J. Goldberg and colleagues, who serve on the AHA's nutrition committee.

Monday June 18, 2001 10:30 AM ET

  Booze Blocks Action of Immune System Protein

  NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Alcohol consumption suppresses an
  immune-system protein involved in fighting pneumonia, which may
  explain why alcoholics have an increased risk of the lung infection, a
  study in mice suggests.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Using the latest DNA technology, scientists in Texas have found that alcohol abuse can alter genes in the brain.

Out of more than 4,000 genes analyzed in brain tissue, about 4% differed by at least 40% between alcoholics and nonalcoholics, researchers report in the December issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

``Just as a computer virus can change the programming of specific functions, our data show that chronic alcohol abuse can change the molecular programming and circuitry of the frontal cortex,'' the study's lead author, Dr. R. Adron Harris, of the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement.

  NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Alcohol dependency may impair certain brain regions in young women, results  from a small study suggest. The findings indicate that even at a young age, alcohol abuse may take a toll on  mental functioning.

  The 10 alcoholic women performed more poorly on the tests and showed functional differences in certain brain  regions compared with the 10 healthy women.

 Alcohol's effects on fetal brain revealed

 By Merritt McKinney

 NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters Health) -- For the first time, researchers have discovered  how drinking alcohol during pregnancy damages the brain of a fetus.

According to a report in the February 11th issue of the journal Science, getting drunk just one time during the final 3  months of pregnancy may be enough to cause brain damage in a fetus.

Monday February 14 6:15 PM ET

 Alcohol affects teen brain, impairs memory

 NEW YORK, Feb 14 (Reuters Health) -- Teenagers who drink heavily have more difficulty recalling new information compared with teens who do not drink, according to a report.

 The findings suggest that teenagers who drink may be exposing their brains to the toxic effects of alcohol during a critical time in brain development.

 This is a very important time for brain development... ``Certain brain developments, such as the refinement of neural connections, are completed by about age 16,'' she commented. ``Developments in the frontal lobes -- parts of the brain that are important in judgment, planning and problem solving -- continue until about age 16.''

NEW YORK, Sep 01 (Reuters Health) -- States with an 18-year-old minimum legal drinking age have
higher rates of teen suicide than states that do not permit legal drinking until age 21, researchers report.

They suggest that alcohol may increase the risk of suicide in 18-20 year olds in several ways -- by
deepening depression, negatively affecting the ability to make decisions under stress, and interfering with the treatment of mental
illness.