How A Daytime Nap Affects Your Brain Volume (M)
There is some stigma around napping, perhaps partly because excessive daytime napping can be a sign of Alzheimer's. (Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog)
Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog - July 20, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Jeremy Dean Tags: Sleep subscribers-only Source Type: blogs

5 Ways Data (and Storage) are Powering the Evolution of Healthcare
The following is a guest article by Doug McLoughlin, Regional Manager at Western Digital Healthcare technology is finally catching up with a digital revolution that’s been well underway for over a decade in other industries. The transformation was accelerated in the last three years when confined to our homes for months on end, doctors and patients alike turned to technology to try and stay healthy and connected. From medical to consumer-grade devices, millions of new endpoints emerged, generating new volumes of data. Ranging from improving individual health to better patient outcomes to enabling more advanced research, ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - July 20, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Analytics/Big Data Health IT Company Healthcare IT IT Infrastructure and Dev Ops AI Data Storage Doug McLoughlin Healthcare Data Healthcare Data Storage Improving Patient Outcomes ML Reducing Costs RPM Western Digital Source Type: blogs

A Tau Based Biomarker of Alzheimer's Progression and Cognitive Decline
Research groups have been hard at work over the past decade to build better biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease. Several blood-based biomarkers are quite advanced in their development. Here, researchers propose a less convenient cerebrospinal fluid biomarker, but still an improvement over the cost of brain imaging technologies when it comes to tracking the progression of the condition. Better, cheaper assays for Alzheimer's disease are certainly needed, particularly when it comes to the early stages of the condition, in which symptoms are mild or non-existent. Prevention is always easier than coping with a condition in its ...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 20, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

No, the Poor Don ’ t Always Have to Be With Us
BY KIM BELLARD OK, for you amateur (or professional) epidemiologists among us: what are the leading causes of death in the U.S.?  Let’s see, most of us would probably cite heart disease and cancer.  After that, we might guess smoking, obesity, or, in recent years, COVID.  But a new study has a surprising contender: poverty.    It’s the kind of thing you might expect to find in developing countries, not in the world’s leading economy, the most prosperous country in the world. But amidst all that prosperity, the U.S. has the highest rates of poverty among developed countries, which accounts in no small part ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 18, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Anti-Poverty Medicine Kim Bellard TANF Source Type: blogs

Inhibition of Glycolysis as a Treatment for Neurodegeneration
Researchers here discuss a program of drug discovery that led to inhibitors of glycolysis as a potential approach to treatment for neurodegenerative conditions. The researchers note that elevated glycolysis is a characteristic of Alzheimer's disease, for example. There are always many, many mechanisms and altered aspects of cell metabolism one can investigate in aging and age-related disease. The question to ask when looking at any one specific mechanism in isolation is how much of the pathology of the condition lies downstream of this mechanism. It is all to easy to find oneself targeting a side-effect, or a minor mechani...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 18, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Microglial Activation as a Consequence of Gum Disease
In this study, we tested the hypothesis that periodontal disease (PD) as a source of infection alters inflammatory activation and Aβ phagocytosis by the microglial cells. Experimental PD was induced using ligatures in C57BL/6 mice for 1, 10, 20, and 30 days to assess the progression of PD. Animals without ligatures were used as controls. Ligature placement caused progressive periodontal disease and bone resorption that was already significant on day 1 post-ligation and continued to increase until day 30. The severity of periodontal disease increased the frequency of activated microglia in the brains on day 30 by 36...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 17, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Bonus Features – July 16, 2023 – 95% of patients are concerned about data breaches affecting their medical records, 81% incorrectly assume PHI collected by digital health apps is protected under HIPAA
This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job. News The Sequoia Project and AHIMA are co-sponsoring the Data Usability Taking Root initiative, which will aim to implement data usability guidance published by a Sequoia Project workgroup with input form more than 260 organizat...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - July 16, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: Healthcare IT Accelecom Arcadia AT&T Availity Brightside Health Cerner Christine Swisher ClearDATA CMS CommonWell Health Alliance Cotiviti CVS CareMark Dave Wichmann Dr. Amy Compton-Philips eClinicalWorks eCW eLovu Health Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 17th 2023
In conclusion, the longevity-associated genotype of FLT1 may confer increased lifespan by protecting against mortality risk posed by hypertension. We suggest that FLT1 expression in individuals with longevity genotype boosts vascular endothelial resilience mechanisms to counteract hypertension-related stress in vital organs and tissues. Resistance Exercise Slows the Onset of Pathology in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/07/resistance-exercise-slows-the-onset-of-pathology-in-a-mouse-model-of-alzheimers-disease/ With the caveat that mouse models of Alzheimer'...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 16, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Towards Depletion of Microglia as a Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease
In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the role of microglia in neurodegenerative conditions. Microglia are innate immune cells of the central nervous system, analogous to macrophages elsewhere in the body, but which also participate in the organization of synaptic connections in addition to the other roles one might expect from immune cells. Microglia in the aging brain become more inflammatory and overactive with age. Some become senescent. This contributes to the chronic inflammation of brain tissue observed in older individuals, and which contributes to the onset and progression of neurodegenerative co...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 13, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Reviewing the Role of the Glymphatic System in Brain Aging
That the brain has a lymphatic system is a comparatively recent realization. It coincides with another recent realization that perhaps drainage of fluid from the brain is important in maintaining brain health, carrying away molecular waste that would otherwise accumulate to cause pathology. Common age-related neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by rising inflammation and increasing presence of protein aggregates and other molecular waste in the brain, and it is now known that drainage pathways from the brain to the body are impaired with age. It remains to be seen how well restored drainage performs as a basis for...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 13, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Recombinant Klotho Treatment Improves Cognitive Function in Old Rhesus Macaques
Klotho is one of the few genuinely longevity-associated genes, in that greater than normal expression increases life span in mice, while lower than normal expression shortens life span in mice. In humans, greater levels of circulating soluble klotho correlate with greater longevity. Klotho is thought to operate in the kidneys, in some way that is protective against the mechanisms of age-related decline, but there is a great deal of evidence for greater circulating klotho to improve cognitive function. At the same time, it seems unclear as to whether klotho is actually doing anything in the brain; it may be that the benefit...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 12, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Resistance Exercise Slows the Onset of Pathology in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease
With the caveat that mouse models of Alzheimer's disease are quite artificial, as aged wild-type mice do not suffer from any condition resembling Alzheimer's, and the models are thus built upon assumptions about which processes are important to the progression of the condition, researchers here show that resistance exercise slows the pathology and loss of cognitive function in one such model. Resistance exercise is well demonstrated to improve metabolism, immune function, and reduce mortality in both older animals and humans. It would not be too surprising to find that sedentary individuals are performing more poorly in th...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 11, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 10th 2023
In conclusion, the examination of the GBA can aid in understanding the etiology and development of NDs, which may benefit the improvement of clinical treatments for these disorders and ND interventions. This review indicates existing knowledge about the involvement of microbiota present in the gut in NDs and potential treatment options. The Aging of the Enteric Nervous System https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/07/the-aging-of-the-enteric-nervous-system/ The enteric nervous system is the nervous system of the intestines, and likely an important part of the relationship between the gut microbiome ...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 9, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Rationing Health Care
Lately we ' ve touched upon the absurd cost of medical services in the U.S. -- we spend twice as much as the next biggest spender and three or four times as much as others -- and we ' re less healthy for it. There are a few reasons for this, but here I ' m going to touch the third rail.In the United States, in contrast to other nations, if the FDA approves a treatment, insurance has to pay for it. The FDA does not consider cost, but only whether there is evident of clinical benefit that outweighs risks or (non-financial) harms. The definition of benefit and harm, and how to value them, is of course far from obvious, but we...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 7, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Lipid Droplet Accumulation in Aging and Age-Related Disease
Researchers here consider dysregulation of lipid metabolism at the cellular level as an aspect of aging that causes downstream issues. Like many manifestations of aging observed in cells in aged tissues, why this happens is a matter for debate, setting aside situations such as the environment of a fatty liver or atherosclerotic plaque in which there is a localized excess of lipids to explain the overload inside cells. In a number of neurodegenerative conditions, the presence of cells loaded with lipid droplets is a prominent feature. It remains to be seen as to whether new classes of therapy under development, capable of c...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 7, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs