Very small trial appears to reverse Alzheimers symptoms

Joanne Nova — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 16:29:41 +0000

I like to keep an eye on research on keeping our brains intact (even if it’s not far past the leeches-and-arsenic stage). Here is a tiny trial showing a bit of promise. After years of testing drugs on Alzheimer plaques without much luck, as far as I can tell, this study had the radical idea of doing a bit of everything that had seemed to delay Alzheimers — like exercise, dumping the carbs, mini-fasts, fish oil, meditation and things like that. Unlike the drug trials, this one actually seemed to work and surprisingly for as many as 9 out of 10 patients (there were only ten patients, that’s not a ratio). It’s quite neat that it did work. It has lots of potential (though not much in the way of profits for big-pharma). However it was only six months long. It may not be slowing the plaques, but then if it restores functional memory, that’s rather the point (though I worry those plaques are coming back later).

Nonetheless, if you like the idea of saving your brain. Worth reading the list below, just so you know and pass it on to those with an interest. Anything that helps, especially when [...]

Rating: 7.5/10 (71 votes cast)

Fitness consensus takes a hammering. For couch potatoes, 12 minutes a week makes you fitter

Joanne Nova — Fri, 31 May 2013 05:30:05 +0000

Sorry to do this, but now there are no excuses (apart from arthritis, amputation and angina).

Don’t read on if you are a conscientious objector to exercise. The “I don’t have time” excuse doesn’t wash anymore. Though, if you are habitually running to catch the bus, you can now call that an exercise program (when your doc asks, you can say you do the 1-AIT training regime from NTNU -- Trondheim).

If you are sedentary, new research from Norway suggests that if you do just four minutes of high-intensity training three times a week, within 10 weeks your peak ability to take up oxygen will have improved by 10%.

Do you care about VO2max? It’s a measure of aerobic fitness and it’s linked to that factor that trumps all others: “all cause mortality” (ACM). To put this study into perspective, a 10% improvement is only 10%. The fittest people have 100% higher VO2 max that the least fit (eg from about 20mL/kg/min to 40mL/kg/min). But even a 10% improvement in VO2 max can make a difference to your mortality.

A review of results from 102,000 people showed that if people are split into groups of “fitness” the least fit were [...]

Rating: 8.6/10 (37 votes cast)

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Very small trial appears to reverse Alzheimers symptoms

Fitness consensus takes a hammering. For couch potatoes, 12 minutes a week makes you fitter