Grapes could help protect against cognitive decline
University of California, Los Angeles - February 06 2022.
The January issue of Experimental Gerontology published the finding of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles of a protective effect for powdered grape against a decline in brain metabolism in older adults. The results of the investigation suggest that eating grapes might contribute to the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. The study included ten men a...
Grapes could help protect against cognitive decline
University of California, Los Angeles - February 06 2022.
The January issue of Experimental Gerontology published the finding of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles of a protective effect for powdered grape against a decline in brain metabolism in older adults. The results of the investigation suggest that eating grapes might contribute to the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. The study included ten men and women with mild cognitive decline. Participants were given freeze-dried grape powder or a placebo similar in flavor and appearance but lacking beneficial grape polyphenols. The grape powders, which provided the equivalent of three servings of grapes per day, were mixed with water and consumed in divided daily doses for six months. Cognitive performance and changes in brain metabolism as assessed by PET scans were evaluated before and after the treatment period.
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Loneliness associated with increased risk of dementia in older adults
New York University, February 7, 2022
As social isolation in the United States has been increasing among older adults, a new study shows a notable link between loneliness and dementia risk, and one that is most striking for Americans who represent a large part of the population. In the study publishing February 7 in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology,researchers found a three-fold increase in risk of subsequent dementia among lonely Americans younger than 80 years old who would otherwise be expected to have a relatively low risk based on age and genetic risk factors. The study also found that loneliness was associated with poorer executive function (i.e., a group of cognitive processes including decision-making, planning, cognitive flexibility, and control of attention) and changes in the brain that indicate vulnerability to Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD).
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Dietary total antioxidant capacity and mortality outcomes: the Singapore Chinese Health Study
Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China), February 1, 2022
To evaluate the relations of dietary total antioxidant capacity (DTAC) with mortality outcomes in a Chinese population. The study included 62,063 participants from the Singapore Chinese Health Study. The participants were 45–74 years at baseline (1993–1998) when dietary data were collected with a validated 165-item food frequency questionnaire. During 1,212,318 person-years of follow-up, 23,397 deaths [cardiovascular diseases (CVD): 7523; respiratory diseases: 4696; and cancer: 7713] occurred. In multivariable models, the HR (95% CI) comparing participants in the highest vs. lowest quartile of CDAI was 0.85 for all-cause mortality, 0.82 for CVD mortality, 0.76 for respiratory disease mortality and 0.94 for cancer mortality Similar associations were found with the VCEAC index. Higher intakes of the DTAC components, i.e., vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids, and flavonoids, were all associated with lower mortality risk.
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Healthy lifestyle equals bigger brain
Yale University School of Medicine, February 4 2022.
Research findings scheduled to be reported at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2022 demonstrated that adherence to Life’s Simple 7 lifestyle behaviors is associated with greater brain volume and fewer indicators of damage among middle-aged men and women. The study included 35,914 participants enrolled in the UK Biobank. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain measured brain volume and white matter hyperintensity volume.
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No time to exercise? What about three seconds a day?
Edith Cowan University (Australia) and Niigata University (Japan), February 7, 2022
Lifting weights for as little as three seconds a day can have a positive impact on muscle strength, a new study from Edith Cowan University (ECU) has discovered. A collaboration with researchers from Niigata University of Health and Welfare (NUHW) in Japan had 39 healthy university students perform one muscle contraction at maximum effort for three seconds per day, for five days a week over four weeks. The participants performed either an isometric, concentric or eccentric bicep curl (see definitions below) at maximum effort, while researchers measured the muscles' maximum voluntary contraction strengthbefore and after the four-week period. Another 13 students performed no exercise over the same period and were also measured before and after the four weeks. Muscle strength increased more than 10 percent for the group who performed the eccentric bicep curl after the four weeks, but less increase in muscle strength was found for the other two exercise groups. The no exercise group saw no increase. The study shows all three lifting methods had some benefit to muscle strength, however eccentric contraction easily produced the best results.
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Dystopia Disguised as Democracy: All the Ways in Which Freedom Is an Illusion
John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead, February 8, 2022
We are no longer free. We are living in a world carefully crafted to resemble a representative democracy, but it’s an illusion. We think we have the freedom to elect our leaders, but we’re only allowed to participate in the reassurance ritual of voting. There can be no true electoral choice or real representation when we’re limited in our options to one of two candidates culled from two parties that both march in lockstep with the Deep State and answer to an oligarchic elite. We think we have freedom of speech, but we’re only as free to speak as the government and its corporate partners allow. We think we have the right to freely exercise our religious beliefs, but those rights are quickly overruled if and when they conflict with the government’s priorities, whether it’s COVID-19 mandates or societal values about gender equality, sex and marriage. We think we have the freedom to go where we want and move about freely, but at every turn, we’re hemmed in by laws, fines and penalties that regulate and restrict our autonomy, and surveillance cameras that monitor our movements. Punitive programs strip citizens of their passports and right to travel over unpaid taxes. We think we have property interests in our homes and our bodies, but there can be no such freedom when the government can seize your property, raid your home, and dictate what you do with your bodies. We think we have the freedom to defend ourselves against outside threats, but there is no right to self-defense against militarized police who are authorized to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, and granted immunity from accountability with the general blessing of the courts. Certainly, there can be no right to gun ownership in the face of red flag gun laws which allow the police to remove guns from people merely suspected of being threats. We think we have the right to an assumption of innocence until we are proven guilty, but that burden of proof has been turned on its head by a surveillance state that renders us all suspects and overcriminalization which renders us all lawbreakers. Police-run facial recognition software that mistakenly labels law-abiding citizens as criminals. A social credit system (similar to China’s) that rewards behavior deemed “acceptable” and punishes behavior the government and its corporate allies find offensive, illegal or inappropriate. We think we have the right to due process, but that assurance of justice has been stripped of its power by a judicial system hardwired to act as judge, jury and jailer, leaving us with little recourse for appeal. A perfect example of this rush to judgment can be found in the proliferation of profit-driven speed and red light cameras that do little for safety while padding the pockets of government agencies. By gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect the constitutional rights of the citizenry while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government. We’ve bartered away our right to self-governance, self-defense, privacy, autonomy and that most important right of all: the right to tell the government to “leave me the hell alone.” In exchange for the promise of safe streets, safe schools, blight-free neighborhoods, lower taxes, lower crime rates, and readily accessible technology, health care, water, food and power, we’ve opened the door to militarized police, government surveillance, asset forfeiture, school zero tolerance policies, license plate readers, red light cameras, SWAT team raids, health care mandates, overcriminalization and government corruption. In the end, such bargains always turn sour. We can no longer maintain the illusion of freedom.
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Preventive Use of Ivermectin Reduced COVID Mortality by 90%, Study Found
A peer-reviewed study published last month found the prophylactic use of ivermectin reduced COVID mortality by 90% among more than 223,000 study participants in a town in Southern Brazil.
David Charbonneau, Ph.D., February 7, 2022
A peer-reviewed study published last month found the prophylactic use of ivermectin reduced COVID mortality by 90% among more than 223,000 study participants in a town in Southern Brazil. The study, published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, also found a 44% reduction in COVID cases among those who took the re-purposed drug. Between July 7, 2020, and Dec. 2, 2020, all residents of Itajaí were offered ivermectin. Approximately 3.7% of ivermectin users contracted COVID during the trial period, compared with 6.6% of residents who didn’t take the drug. Based on the results, Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, one of the study’s lead authors, said, “Ivermectin must be considered as an option, particularly during outbreaks.” Dr Pierre Kory said: “You would think this would lead to major headlines everywhere. And yet, nothing. And this is not new, this censorship of this highly effective science and evidence around repurposed drugs. The censoring of it, it’s not new, it’s just getting more and more absurd. And it has to stop.” Kory said it’s not even about ivermectin, “it’s about the pharmaceutical industry’s capture of our agencies and how our policies are all directed at suppressing and avoiding use of re-purposed drugs” in favor of high-profit medicines.
