Blood Tests for Alzheimer's Disease Continue to Look Promising
In recent years, data has shown correlations between specific blood biomarkers and Alzheimer's disease pathology in the brain, such as the burden of misfolded, aggregated amyloid-β. This has led to the development of a variety of blood tests for Alzheimer's disease, intended to replace the presently onerous testing that requires either expensive imaging or invasive analysis of cerebrospinal fluid. Alzheimer's disease develops slowly over time, a long period of raised amyloid-β levels in the brain setting the stage for later dysfunction. Early testing for the risk of later Alzheimer's disease enabled attempts to slow or e...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 6, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Searching for a Causal Link Between Gut Microbiome Populations and Pace of Aging
In conclusion, this Mendelian randomization study found that Streptococcus was causally associated with Bioage acceleration. Further randomized controlled trials are needed to investigate its role in the aging process. Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12020370 (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - March 5, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Blackbird Health Raises $17 Million Series A to Expand Access to Integrated, Technology-Backed Youth Mental Health Model
Blackbird Health Leverages a Neuroscience-Driven, “Understanding-First” Care Model to Take the Trial and Error out of Pediatric, Adolescent, and Young-Adult Mental Health Diagnosis and Treatment Blackbird Health, a neuroscience-led and technology-backed youth mental health provider, announced today it raised $17 million in series A funding. The round was led by Define Ventures and also included participation from Frist Cressey Ventures and GreyMatter. Blackbird has raised nearly $23 million to date. Blackbird Health is a mental health company for kids and young adults struggling with social, emotional, devel...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 4, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Amy Edgar Blackbird Health Chirag Shah Define Ventures Dr. Matt Keener Frist Cressey Ventures GreyMatter Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Investment Tom Peterson Source Type: blogs

Restriction of RNA Polymerase I Activity Extends Life in Nematode Worms
RNA Polymerase I (Pol I) is prominent in the regulatory systems managing the nutrient-driven tradeoff between growth and longevity. It is responsible for producing a sizable fraction of RNA, reading from gene sequences and assembling corresponding RNA molecules. As such, it is responsible for initiating some of the most energetically expensive processes in the cell, including translation of messenger RNA into proteins. Suppression of the production of proteins is a consequence of low calorie intake, an intervention known to slow aging, and researchers have shown that interfering in RNA synthesis can also extend life in sho...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 4, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 4th 2024
In conclusion, HSV (but not CMV) infection may be indicative of doubled dementia risk. « Back to Top Increased Dietary Leucine Activates mTOR Signaling in Macrophages, Accelerating Atherosclerosis https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/02/increased-dietary-leucine-activates-mtor-signaling-in-macrophages-accelerating-atherosclerosis/ Leucine is an essential amino acid, only obtained from the diet rather than synthesized by our cells. Leucine supplementation has been proposed as a way to slow the loss of muscle mass with age, as leucine processing becomes dysregulated with aging in a way...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

This Is The Effect Of Sugar On Your Brain ’ s Memory Centres (M)
The sweet enemy of memory lurking in your diet. (Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog)
Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog - March 2, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Jeremy Dean Tags: Dementia subscribers-only Source Type: blogs

NPTX2 Involved in Neurodegeneration Driven by TDP-43 Aggregation
Altered, misfolded forms of TDP-43 are thought to contribute to neurodegeneration in a number of age-related conditions, primarily amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. As is the case for other misfolded proteins associated with neurodegeneration, aberrant TDP-43 may accumulate in much of the older population to levels sufficient to meaningfully contribute to cognitive decline. That TDP-43 has this negative impact is a relatively recent discovery, and in comparison to amyloid-β, tau, and α-synuclein little is known of the mechanisms by which TDP-43 aggregation causes dysfunction and death in brain ce...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 29, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Heart-stopping brain surgery: a surgeon ’ s harrowing dilemma
An excerpt from of Paint and Pancakes. The epicenter of Jane’s cancer occupied some very expensive real estate between Broca’s area and the motor strip. Her ability to speak and form coherent words resided in Broca’s. A little further back was the Motor Strip, which controlled the movement of the right side of her body. Read more… Heart-stopping brain surgery: a surgeon’s harrowing dilemma originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 29, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Conditions Surgery Source Type: blogs

Particulate Air Pollution Correlates with Risk of Alzheimer's Disease
Researchers here use data on air pollution from a single US metropolitan area to show a correlation with Alzheimer's disease risk. Air pollution is shown to increase chronic inflammation via the interaction of particulates with lung tissue, and inflammation is an important component of the onset and progression of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. That said, the researchers were primarily interested in traffic as a source of particulate air pollution, and one might think that this introduces a correlation with wealth, given the usual distribution of cost of living versus proximity to major flows of ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 29, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Surviving a 28-hour hospital shift: a resident ’ s struggle and passion
I recently worked a 28-hour shift in the hospital. I am on a rotation where I work these long shifts every four days, and my last 3 or 4 of these shifts have been the kind that really tries a person’s soul. I got called all night to see new patients and take care of Read more… Surviving a 28-hour hospital shift: a resident’s struggle and passion originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 28, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Neurology Source Type: blogs

What Health IT Trend Has You Most Excited?
Burnout is something that can slowly creep up on you but take a long time to crawl out of. This serious problem is something that happens with you are overworked and overstressed from the problems you are tasked with at work. In the world of healthcare, where we are constantly looking for ways to make things better, it is no surprise that we are facing a high burnout rate. While burnout is hard to recover from, it is possible. Taking time off and finding things that you enjoy and are excited about are key to letting your brain reset and being ready to get back to work. While there are countless problems and struggles in he...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - February 28, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Grayson Miller Tags: AI/Machine Learning Ambulatory C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System 86Borders Arcadia Authenticx AVIA Health Blake Richards Dan McDonald Elucid Eric Prugh Health IT Trends Healthcare AI Source Type: blogs

MDM2 Inhibition Reduces Loss of Synapses in a Cell Culture Model
Loss of synaptic connections between neurons is one of the harmful outcomes of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. In mouse models of Alzheimer's disease engineered to produce amyloid-β, excessive pruning of synapses is thought to be a maladaptive response to the presence of misfolded amyloid-β. Investigating the details of this excessive pruning in cell cultures, researchers have found a way to interfere in the signaling involved. At least in vitro there are positive results, but it remains to be seen as to how well this approach will work in the animal models of Alzheimer's disease. Resea...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 28, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Trial By Error: An Interview with Neuroscientist Michael VanElzakker about the Just-Published and Long-Awaited NIH Study
By David Tuller, DrPH So, okay…The big enchilada from the US National Institutes of Health’s seven-year, $8-million, under-recruited and over-hyped study—”Deep phenotyping of post-infectious myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome”–was published last week in Nature Communications. It would be fair to describe the ensuing public debate over this massive text-and-data dump as spirited. (NIH press release here; … Trial By Error: An Interview with Neuroscientist Michael VanElzakker about the Just-Published and Long-Awaited NIH Study Read More » (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - February 28, 2024 Category: Virology Authors: David Tuller Tags: Uncategorized effort preference NIH vanElzakker Source Type: blogs

Old School Wins: The Mind-Boosting Benefits Of Pen On Paper (M)
Learn how handwriting sparks complex brain activity and enhances memory. (Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog)
Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog - February 27, 2024 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Jeremy Dean Tags: Learning subscribers-only Source Type: blogs

The Gut Microbiome and Alzheimer's Disease
The balance of microbial populations making up the gut microbiome changes with age, both a loss of microbes generating beneficial metabolites and an increase in the number of inflammatory microbes. Separately from this harmful process, a number of studies have shown that that aged gut microbiome is distinctly different in patients with Alzheimer's disease, suggesting that there may be a meaningful contribution to disease onset and progression arising from the gut. The precise mechanisms involved have yet to be identified. While inflammation has an important role in Alzheimer's disease, the contribution of an Alzheimer's-li...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 27, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs