A little chocolate each week may help prevent a heart flutter, study says

Indulging in a little chocolate each week maybe be linked with a lower risk of developing the heart rhythm irregularity atrial fibrillation, according to new Danish research.

Also known as a heart flutter, atrial fibrillation affects more than 33 million people worldwide, and one in four adults are likely to develop the condition at some point in their life. However, it’s not clear what causes it or how to prevent it, and there is no known cure.

As regular chocolate consumption, especially of dark chocolate, has been shown to be beneficial for other heart conditions, the team behind the new research wanted to see if chocolate could also help reduce the risk of atrial fibrillation.

The researchers looked at data from 55,502 (26,400 male and 29,100 female) participants, aged between 50 and 64, who were taking part in the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health Study.

Participants reported on their usual weekly chocolate consumption, with one serving classified as 1 ounce (30 g).

Although they were not asked to specify what type of chocolate they consumed, most chocolate eaten in Denmark is milk chocolate, which has a minimum 30 percent cocoa solids.

The team also gathered information on participants’ diet and lifestyle at the beginning of the study, including information on heart disease risk factors such as smoking. Participants were then monitored for an average of 13.5 years.

The results showed that the diagnosis rate of atrial fibrillation rate was 10 percent lower for those who are 1-3 servings of chocolate a month than it was for those who ate less than 1 serving a month.

Those who ate one serving of chocolate a week benefited from a 17 percent lower risk of atrial fibrillation, and those who increased this to 2-6 weekly servings benefited from a 20 percent lower risk.

Those who ate one or more servings daily showed a 14 percent lower risk.

When they looked at any sex differences between the results, the findings showed that the association seemed to be strongest for women when they ate 1 weekly serving of chocolate (21 percent lower risk), and strongest for men when they consumed between 2 and 6 weekly servings (23 percent lower risk).

As an observational study, no firm conclusions can be made, and certain factors could affect the health benefits of the chocolate, for example adding milk.

However the team still concluded, “Regardless of the limitations of the Danish chocolate study, the findings are interesting and warrant further consideration, especially given the importance of identifying effective prevention strategies for [atrial fibrillation],” which have so far proved elusive.

The findings can be found published online in the journal Heart. KI

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

New study suggests 2.5 hours exercise a week can slow decline in Parkinson’s disease

A new study has found Parkinson’s patients who do 2.5 hours, or 150 minutes, of exercise a week can slow down the effects of the condition.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive condition that often results in impaired mobility, a decrease in health-related quality of life (HRQL), and death.

Previous research has also provided evidence that physical activity can delay this progressive decline.

The new study, carried out by Northwestern University and Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, looked at 3,408 participants who had provided data over a two-year period, with information collected during at least three clinic visits.

At each visit the team measured physical activity by patients’ self-reports on how many hours of exercise they did each week.

The results showed that those with Parkinson’s disease who partook in 150 minutes of exercise each week had a smaller decline in quality of life and mobility over the two years compared to those who didn’t exercise or exercised less.

In addition, declines in HRQL and mobility were significantly slower not only for those who exercised regularly at the start of the study, but also for those who started to exercise later, after their first study-related visit.

“The most important part of the study is that it suggests that people who are not currently achieving recommended levels of exercise could start to exercise today to lessen the declines in quality of life and mobility that can occur with this progressive disease,” added lead investigator Miriam R. Rafferty.

The team also found that increasing exercise by 30 minutes per week was associated with even slower declines in HRQL in those with advanced PD. The team now believe that these findings could have significant implications for making exercise and physical activity more accessible to people with more severe disability, as the mobility impairments of those with advanced PD may limit their access to regular exercise in community and group exercise programs.

Although the study did not look at which type of physical activity is best, it does suggest that any form of exercise is better than no exercise as long as it is done in a “dose” of at least 150 minutes per week.

“People with PD should feel empowered to find the type of exercise they enjoy, even those with more advanced symptoms,” added Dr. Rafferty.

The results of the study can be found published in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease. JB

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Shift work link to brain power decline – study

PARIS - People who work shifts for 10 years or more may suffer loss of memory and brain power, said a study Tuesday that also warned of safety concerns in high-risk jobs.

The effects on brain function can be reversed, the team wrote in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, but this may take at least five years.

The research is the latest to highlight the dangers of shift work, which disrupts the body's internal clock and has previously been linked to health problems like ulcers, cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

Yet, little has been known about its potential impact on brain function.

Researchers tested more than 3,000 current or retired workers in a variety of sectors in southern France in 1996, 2001 and 2006 for long- and short-term memory, processing speed and overall cognitive abilities.

About half of the trial subjects, aged either 32, 42, 52 or 62 when they were first tested, had worked shifts—classified as night work or shifts that alternated between morning, afternoon and night.

Comparing the change in test results over time, and between the two groups, the researchers found an association between shift work and "chronic cognitive impairment."

"The association was stronger for exposure durations exceeding 10 years" of shift work, which they said was equivalent to an additional 6.5 years of age-related decline.

The data also showed that "recovery of cognitive functioning after having left shift work took at least five years."

The study could not prove conclusively that shift work was the cause of the cognitive decline, said the authors, and though it seemed "highly plausible", further research was needed.

The findings raised "potentially important safety consequences not only for the individuals concerned, but also for society," the scientists concluded, pointing to "the increasing number of jobs in high hazard situations that are performed at night."

"The current findings highlight the importance of maintaining a medical surveillance of shift workers, especially of those who have remained in shift work for 10 years or more." — Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

Flaxseed may reduce blood pressure, early findings show

NEW YORK - Eating a bit of flaxseed each day might help lower high blood pressure, a new study suggests.

Researchers said it's too early to swap out blood pressure medication for the fiber-filled seeds just yet. But if future studies confirm the new results, flax might be a cheap way to treat high blood pressure, they added.

Flaxseed is well known as a plant source of omega-3 fatty acids, fiber and lignans, a type of antioxidants.

But so far, its effect on high blood pressure, or hypertension, has been better studied among animals than humans.

"This is the first demonstration of the cardiovascular effects of dietary flaxseed in a hypertensive population," Grant Pierce told Reuters Health in an email. Pierce is the senior author on the study and executive director of research at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

One in three American adults has high blood pressure, considered 140/90 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) and over, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Having high blood pressure increases a person's risk of heart disease and stroke. The condition costs the US billions of dollars each year, Pierce said.

"It is the number one reason for a person to visit a physician in the U.S. today," he said. "Understanding how to reduce blood pressure has become, therefore, a critical challenge."

His team's results were published in the journal Hypertension.

The trial included 110 people who had been diagnosed with peripheral artery disease, in which plaque builds up in arteries in the leg. Patients with the condition often have high blood pressure.

The participants were randomly assigned to either a flaxseed or comparison group.

People in the flaxseed group ate a variety of foods like bagels, muffins and pasta that contained 30 grams—about one ounce—of milled flaxseed every day for six months.

Those in the comparison group were given foods that tasted similar, but didn't contain any flaxseed.

The researchers had participants increase their dose of flaxseed gradually so they could become accustomed to the fiber load.

Still, one in five participants dropped out of each group during the trial. Some of that could have been due to stomach pain from the extra fiber, Pierce said.

People who had an initial systolic blood pressure—the top number in a blood pressure reading - of at least 140 mm Hg saw that figure drop by 15 mm Hg, on average, after six months of taking flaxseed.

Their diastolic blood pressure—the bottom number—also fell by 7 mm Hg. Blood pressure did not change among people with hypertension in the comparison group.

"These decreases in (blood pressure) are amongst the most potent dietary interventions observed and comparable to current medications," Pierce said.

There was no flaxseed-related benefit for people with normal blood pressure, however.

Flaxseed costs about 25 to 50 cents per ounce.

The new study was partially funded by the Flax Council of Canada. It wasn't originally designed to study blood pressure, which means the results have to be interpreted with more caution.

"The study results are indeed surprising—it is actually hard to imagine such huge reductions in blood pressure with flax seed mixed in food stuffs," Dr. William B. White told Reuters Health in an email.

White, from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington, is also the president of the American Society of Hypertension. He was not involved in the new study.

He also expressed some concern that measuring blood pressure changes was not the initial reason for doing the study. And he said the way blood pressure was measured - during a single office visit - isn't as accurate as checking it at multiple points throughout the day.

"The results are preliminary—there is not enough information to justify people taking flax seed for the control of hypertension. A larger, more controlled trial with out-of-office blood pressure would be needed," White said.

According to Pierce, a new study is underway. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Want to know if you have Alzheimer's? Try some peanut butter

A-la peanut butter sandwiches! Just as The Amazing Mumford invokes peanut butter for his magic tricks, researchers at the University of Florida are now turning to the treat for detecting Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages.

Graduate student Jennifer Stamps thought of using peanut butter to test patients for their sense of smell, which could deteriorate with cognitive decline.

"One of the first places in the brain to degenerate in people with Alzheimer’s disease is the front part of the temporal lobe that evolved from the smell system, and this portion of the brain is involved in forming new memories," the university said in a news release.




Stamps and Dr. Kenneth Heilman, the James E. Rooks distinguished professor of neurology and health psychology in the UF College of Medicine’s department of neurology, said this test could be used by clinics that cannot run more elaborate tests.

The university added the peanut butter test will be one more added tool in an arsenal of clinical tests for neurological function in patients with memory disorders.

“We see people with all kinds of memory disorders. This can become an important part of the evaluation process,” Heilman said.

With her colleagues, Stamps, a graduate student in the UF McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste, decided to test sensitivity with peanut butter and a ruler.

They reported the findings of a small pilot study in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

Stamps said she thought of peanut butter because it is a “pure odorant” that is only detected by the olfactory nerve and is easy to access.

Study details

In the study, patients who were coming to the clinic for testing sat down with a clinician with a tablespoon (14 grams) of peanut butter and a ruler.

The patient would close his or her eyes and mouth and block one nostril. The clinician then opened the peanut butter container and held the ruler next to the open nostril as the patient breathed.

The clinician would move the peanut butter up the ruler one centimeter at a time until the patient could detect an odor.

After recording the distance, the clinician would repeat the procedure on the other nostril after a 90-second delay.

In the study, the researchers found patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease had a dramatic difference in detecting odor between the left and right nostril.

The left nostril turned out to be impaired and did not detect the smell until it was about 10 cm closer to the nose than the right nostril.

Patients with other kinds of dementia did not have such a degraded sense of smell, the university noted.

More studies needed

The researchers said more studies may be needed, after noting that of the 24 patients tested who had mild cognitive impairment, 10 showed a left nostril impairment and 14 patients did not.

“At the moment, we can use this test to confirm diagnosis. But we plan to study patients with mild cognitive impairment to see if this test might be used to predict which patients are going to get Alzheimer’s disease,” Stamps said. — TJD, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Mid-life stress could be linked to Alzheimer's: study

NEW YORK - Middle-aged women with lots of stress are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease down the road, a new study suggests.

Why that might be the case is still a mystery, lead author Lena Johansson from the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at Gothenburg University in Mölndal, Sweden, said.

It's also difficult to say how important stress may be in predicting dementia compared to many other influences like poverty, diet, smoking and blood pressure, she told Reuters Health. But the link remained after the researchers took those factors into account.

"I have no reason to think that this relation is not the same among men," Johansson added.

The new data come from a large study of Swedish women started in 1968, when participants were at least 38 years old. Researchers surveyed 800 of those women about their mental health and wellbeing at least once every decade until 2005.

For their study, Johansson and her colleagues looked at women's reporting of 18 stressful life events like divorce, widowhood or a relative's illness and how distressed they felt by those events.

They also consulted hospital records and results of neuropsychiatric exams to track which participants were diagnosed with dementia during the study.

By 2005, 153 women had developed dementia, including 104 with Alzheimer's disease, the researchers report in BMJ Open.

They found that for each additional stressor women reported in 1968, their risk of later developing Alzheimer's disease increased by about 20 percent.

Women who reported long-term distress also had a heightened risk of Alzheimer's, regardless of how many stressful life events they had experienced.

The study does not prove cause and effect, and some other factor common to the women might account for their risk of later dementia.

Still, Robert S. Wilson, who studies Alzheimer's disease at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said, "This is the best evidence by far to date linking psychosocial stressors with dementia. It's really astounding."

He said it was especially impressive that the study was able to link life events, not just how stressed women felt, to later dementia.

Everyone reacts to stressful events differently, but these events seemed to have a similar effect across the board, said Wilson, who was not involved in the study.

"These are low-level chronic stressors that affect virtually every family network," he told Reuters Health.

Still, people who have lost a spouse, been divorced or experienced other stressful events shouldn't necessarily be worried, he said.

"I think these are modest effects overall," Wilson said.

"Stress and stressors are just one of several risk factors," Johansson said. "Not everyone who had stress or stressors developed (dementia)."

By age 85, nearly half of people may have Alzheimer's disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"These problems are very common, and they are of definite public health importance," Wilson said. "I think we should be thinking about stress reduction as a more routine kind of healthcare option."

What many people think of as common life events may continue to cause distress for years, he said, and stress reduction techniques like "talking it out" or seeking professional help might be beneficial. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Eating fish linked to longer life: US study

WASHINGTON - People age 65 and older who eat fish may live an average of two years longer than people who do not consume the omega-3 fatty acids found mainly in seafood, a US study suggested on Monday.

People with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids also had an overall risk of dying that was 27 percent lower, and a risk of dying from heart disease that was 35 percent lower than counterparts who had lower blood levels, said the study.

The research was led by scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health and was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

While other studies have demonstrated a link between omega-3 fatty acids and lower risk of heart disease, this research examined records of older people to determine any link between fish-eating and death risk.

Researchers scanned 16 years of data on about 2,700 US adults aged 65 or older. Those considered for the study were not taking fish oil supplements, to eliminate any confusion over the use of supplements or dietary differences.

Those with the highest blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids found mainly in fish like salmon, tuna, halibut, sardines, herring and mackerel, had the lowest risk of dying from any cause, and lived an average of 2.2 years longer than those with low levels.

Researchers identified docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) as most strongly related to lower risk of coronary heart disease death.

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) was strongly linked to lower risk of nonfatal heart attack, and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) was most strongly associated with lower risk of dying from a stroke.

The findings persisted after researchers adjusted for demographic, lifestyle and diet factors.

"Our findings support the importance of adequate blood omega-3 levels for cardiovascular health, and suggest that later in life these benefits could actually extend the years of remaining life," said lead author Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health.

"The biggest bang-for-your-buck is for going from no intake to modest intake, or about two servings of fatty fish per week," said Mozaffarian. —Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com