Childhood diet and exercise creates healthier, less anxious adults

Study in mice shows lasting effects of early-life habits

April 9, 2021

Science Daily/University of California - Riverside

Exercise and a healthy diet in childhood leads to adults with bigger brains and lower levels of anxiety, according to new UC Riverside research in mice.

Though diet and exercise are consistently recommended as ways to promote health, this study is the first to examine the long-lasting, combined effects of both factors when they are experienced early in life.

"Any time you go to the doctor with concerns about your weight, almost without fail, they recommend you exercise and eat less," said study lead and UCR physiology doctoral student Marcell Cadney. "That's why it's surprising most studies only look at diet or exercise separately. In this study, we wanted to include both."

The researchers determined that early-life exercise generally reduced anxious behaviors in adults. It also led to an increase in adult muscle and brain mass. When fed "Western" style diets high in fat and sugar, the mice not only became fatter, but also grew into adults that preferred unhealthy foods.

These findings have recently been published in the journal Physiology and Behavior. To obtain them, the researchers divided the young mice into four groups -- those with access to exercise, those without access, those fed a standard, healthy diet and those who ate a Western diet.

Mice started on their diets immediately after weaning, and continued on them for three weeks, until they reached sexual maturity. After an additional eight weeks of "washout," during which all mice were housed without wheels and on the healthy diet, the researchers did behavioral analysis, measured aerobic capacity, and levels of several different hormones.

One of those they measured, leptin, is produced by fat cells. It helps control body weight by increasing energy expenditure and signaling that less food is required. Early-life exercise increased adult leptin levels as well as fat mass in adult mice, regardless of the diet they ate.

Previously, the research team found that eating too much fat and sugar as a child can alter the microbiome for life, even if they later eat healthier. Going forward, the team plans to investigate whether fat or sugar is more responsible for the negative effects they measured in Western-diet-fed mice.

Together, both studies offer critical opportunities for health interventions in childhood habits.

"Our findings may be relevant for understanding the potential effects of activity reductions and dietary changes associated with obesity," said UCR evolutionary physiologist Theodore Garland.

In other words, getting a jump start on health in the early years of life is extremely important, and interventions may be even more critical in the wake of the pandemic.

"During the COVID-19 lockdowns, particularly in the early months, kids got very little exercise. For many without access to a park or a backyard, school was their only source of physical activity," Cadney said. "It is important we find solutions for these kids, possibly including extra attention as they grow into adults."

Given that exercise was also shown to reduce adult anxiety, Cadney believes children who face these challenges may face unique physical and mental health issues as they become adults in the coming decade.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210409093604.htm

Pandemic got you down? A little nature could help

Spending time in nature can help ease stressful feelings, researchers find

February 18, 2021

Science Daily/University of Connecticut

Having trouble coping with COVID?

Go take a hike. Literally.

Researchers have long been aware of the positive impact of a connection with nature on psychological health and, according to a new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, the pandemic hasn't decreased the power of nature to improve mental well-being.

"Thinking about the natural world in an interconnected and harmonious way corresponds to improved psychological health, no matter where you are," says Brian W. Haas, the lead author of the new study and an associate professor in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences Program at the University of Georgia.

Haas and his collaborators -- Fumiko Hoeft, a professor of psychological sciences at UConn and director of UConn's Brain Imaging Research Center; and Kazufumi Omura, faculty of Education, Art and Science at Yamagata University in Japan -- used a survey in America and Japan to measure worldviews on nature as well as how much the pandemic impacted people's lives, and their current psychological health.

The survey sought to gauge whether the participants had a worldview in harmony with nature -- being in tune or connected with the natural world, or a worldview of mastery over nature -- the belief that people have the ability to control the natural world. They also reported on their stress levels and were asked if the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them personally or impacted their employment or finances.

The researchers found that, while participants in general report greater stress levels during the pandemic, individuals with a harmony-with-nature worldview were coping better regardless of whether they lived in Japan or in the United States.

"Clearly there's great need for study as relates to the pandemic, not just now during COVID, but also of previous pandemics and for possible future pandemics," says Hoeft. "I feel like this is a really great lesson, and a moment for us to really appreciate that things like our relationship with nature do matter and make an impact on more tangible things, like our mental health, which we often forget."

The researchers found that the difference between the two cultures, however, became apparent when looking at individuals with a mastery-over-nature worldview.

"We found that the Americans who believed that humans are, and should be, the masters of the natural world did not tend to cope well during the pandemic," Haas says. "While this was not the case in Japan."

Rather, in Japan, having a mastery-over-nature worldview was not correlated with poor coping. The researchers suggest the difference might be rooted in the concept of naïve dialecticism -- the acceptance or tolerance of contradiction.

"In other cultures outside of the United States, people tend to be more comfortable with contradiction; in other cultures, it is generally more accepted to possess conflicting ideas within your mind at the same time," Haas says. "But in the United States, it's not. We can apply this concept to nature and the current global pandemic. For instance, if I hold a view that I am the master of the natural world, and then a global pandemic happens, this is a clear natural disaster. If I believe that I am the master of the natural world, then surely I would never allow a natural disaster to happen. These concepts are inconsistent with one another, and a consequence of inconsistency is often negative mood."

While the study offers only a snapshot view of just two cultures, Haas believes other cultures would likely demonstrate a similar positive association with a harmony-with-nature worldviews, predicting that "it's likely a universal phenomenon."

Both Haas and Hoeft say that, in an increasingly virtual and technology driven world, taking a moment to appreciate nature has clear benefits regardless of where you live.

"In Japanese, there's this word called 'forest-bathing,'" Hoeft says. "It's basically when you go out into nature, and enjoy being surrounded by trees. It's usually for forests, but you go walking and it's supposed to refresh you. People often talk about how they went out 'forest bathing.' I love thinking about these kinds of old phrases -- do they have some real impact or real scientific background in the end? And I think this is one of them where this really does have a connection. There is some scientific truth behind this."

"Think about taking a step away from Zoom for a moment and taking a walk and listening to the birds chirp," Haas says. "I mean, just the benefit of that, and understanding that we have a role in this natural world, and we're part of it. I think that's really intuitive and it's obvious, but I think it's also really, really important. We're showing very convincingly with empirical data that, during a very difficult time like we are in now, that it's important to do these things to maintain your psychological health."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210218140115.htm

Low fitness linked to higher psoriasis risk later in life

January 12, 2021

Science Daily/University of Gothenburg

In a major register-based study, scientists at University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now demonstrated a connection between inferior physical fitness in young adults and elevated risk of the autoimmune disease psoriasis. For the male recruits to compulsory military training who were rated as the least fit, the risk of developing psoriasis later was 35 percent higher than for the fittest.

The study was based on data on more than 1.2 million men conscripted, aged 18, into the Swedish Armed Forces between the years 1968 and 2005. During the enrollment process, all these young men underwent the same fitness test on an exercise bicycle. The researchers divided the data, according to how fit the men were, into three levels (low, medium, and high fitness). They then merged the data with other registers, using Sweden's National Patient Register to obtain diagnostic codes for psoriasis and the joint disease psoriatic arthritis. The men who had already received one of these diagnoses before conscription were excluded from the study.

Later in life, between the ages of 37 and 51, just over 23,000 of the conscripts developed psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis. In the low-fitness group, 2.5 percent developed one or both of these diseases, while only 1.7 percent in the high-fitness group did so. In calculating this risk differential, the scientists adjusted for other risk factors, such as body mass index (BMI).

Association not causal

Thus, the less fit the men were when they were recruited, the higher the proportion of them who later fell ill with psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis. In the low-fitness group, the risk of developing psoriasis was 35 percent higher, and that of developing psoriatic arthritis 44 percent higher, than in the high-fitness group.

"We show that there's an association between lower fitness and raised risk of developing psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, but we don't show a causal connection. So we can't say that these health conditions can be prevented by exercising," says the study's first author Marta Laskowski, a doctoral student in dermatology at the University of Gothenburg and resident physician (specialist trainee) at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

Group in need of monitoring

The group of men who were least fit was also the smallest: just under 48,000 or 3.9 percent of all the conscripts in the study. This is a group that healthcare services should try to monitor regularly.

"Low fitness was already known to boost the risk of incurring cardiovascular disease, and psoriasis as such is linked to raised cardiovascular disease risk, too. The results from our study confirm the reasons for assessing people's fitness early in life, to identify individuals at a higher risk for adverse health outcomes later in life," Laskowski says.

Previous research has indicated that, in general, people with psoriasis are less fit than those without it who engage in an equal amount of physical activity. However, the reasons for this difference have not been fully clarified.

"One weakness of our study is that we weren't been able to monitor the trends of the men's fitness during the intervening years, between their conscription and the disease onset. We're also lacking data on smoking, which is a known risk factor for psoriasis," Laskowski explains.

Scaly skin patches

Some 300,000 Swedes have psoriasis in a mild, moderate, or severe form. It is a chronic, systemic inflammatory disease that affects women as often as men. What triggers its onset is not entirely clear, but heredity is known to play a large part in combination with external factors. The most common type, plaque psoriasis, causes reddened, flaking, and itchy skin lesions ("plaques").

Psoriasis sufferers also often have other diseases. Some 30 percent get the inflammatory joint condition known as psoriatic arthritis. Examples of other known comorbidities are obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression.

In recent years, treatment options have substantially improved. Today, besides ointments with local effects, there are drugs that have systemic effects. Recent years have also seen the emergence of efficacious biological agents that modulate the signaling cascade in the inflammatory process that drives psoriasis.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210112110116.htm

Low-intensity exercise during adolescence may cut schizophrenia risk

December 16, 2020

Science Daily/University of Tsukuba

Although schizophrenia is increasingly understood as a neurodevelopmental disorder, environmental factors are known to play an important role in the disease onset and progression. But now, researchers from Japan have found that exercise during a specific postnatal period may prevent the development of behaviors associated with schizophrenia.

In a study published this month in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have revealed that low-intensity exercise during adolescence, which is a critical developmental period, significantly reduced abnormal behaviors in a mouse model of schizophrenia.

An enriched environment during development has been found to have a number of positive effects on brain function, including the prevention of neurodevelopmental disorders. Although exercise appears to have a particularly important effect, the combination of variables present in enriched environments can make it difficult to isolate the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects. To address this, the researchers at the University of Tsukuba developed a new exercise model in which mice ran on a treadmill at a fixed speed. They then tested whether low-intensity treadmill running prevented abnormal behaviors in a mouse model of schizophrenia.

"Previous studies have shown that exercise can enhance neuronal transmission and have other beneficial effects," says lead author of the study Hikaru Koizumi. "However, the intensity, duration, and frequency of exercise have varied among studies using wheel running, making it difficult to determine how much exercise would be necessary to see these positive effects in humans."

To address this, the researchers examined behavioral and neurological function in mice that had been exposed to phencyclidine (PCP) hydrochloride during perinatal development, which is a common model of schizophrenia. The mice were then exposed to 4 weeks of low-intensity exercise during adolescence, and tested to see whether they exhibited abnormal behaviors and associated neurological abnormalities.

"The results were surprising," explains senior author Professor Hideaki Soya. "Our finding that low-intensity exercise could prevent abnormal behaviors indicates that exercise may directly contribute to the prevention of schizophrenia."

This has important implications for the potential neuropathology of schizophrenia, especially given that the low-intensity exercise recovered changes in neural signaling associated with the expected behavioral abnormalities.

"Our findings indicate that mild exercise habits during development could have a powerful preventative effect in individuals who are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia. As such, exercise could be a particularly important consideration for individuals who are at risk for developing the condition," says Professor Soya.

Mild exercise during development could prevent schizophrenia by masking or improving neurodevelopmental abnormalities present due to genetic inheritance. Specialized exercise programs for individuals who are at risk may be successful in preventing the development of schizophrenia, with serious implications for the quality of life in these individuals.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201216094645.htm

Everyday activities enhance personal well-being

November 25, 2020

Science Daily/Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (K

Physical activity makes happy and is important to maintain psychic health. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH) in Mannheim studied the brain regions which play a central role in this process. Their findings reveal that even everyday activities, such as climbing stairs, significantly enhance well-being, in particular of persons susceptible to psychiatric disorders. The study is published in Science Advances.

Exercise enhances physical well-being and mental health. However, impacts of everyday activities, such as climbing stairs, walking, or going to the tram station instead of driving, on a person's mental health have hardly been studied so far. For example, it is not yet clear which brain structures are involved. A team of the Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH) in Mannheim, KIT's Institute of Sports and Sports Science, and the GIScience / Geoinformatics Research Group of Heidelberg University has now studied everyday activities that make up the highest share of our daily exercise. "Climbing stairs every day may help us feel awake and full of energy. This enhances well-being," the study's first authors explain. These are Dr. Markus Reichert who conducts research at CIMH and KIT and Dr. Urs Braun, Head of the Complex Systems Research Group of the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Clinic of CIMH.

The research findings are of particular relevance in the current situation with Corona restrictions and the coming winter. "Currently, we are experiencing strong restrictions of public life and social contacts, which may adversely affect our well-being," Professor Heike Tost, Head of the Systems Neuroscience Psychiatry Research Group of the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Clinic, says. "To feel better, it may help to more often climb stairs."

Everyday Activities Enhance Alertness and Physical Energy 

"For our studies, we newly combined various research methods in everyday life and at the laboratory," says Professor Ulrich Ebner-Priemer, Head of the mHealth Methods in Psychiatry Research Group, Deputy Head of IfSS, and Head of the Mental mHealth Lab of KIT. Among the methods used were ambulant assessments with movement sensors as well as smartphone surveys on the well-being that were triggered by geolocation data as soon as the subjects moved.

67 persons were subjected to ambulant assessments to determine the impact of everyday activity on alertness for seven days. It was found that the persons felt more alert and were bursting with even more energy directly after the activity. Alertness and energy were proved to be important components of well-being and psychic health of the participants.

Brain Regions for Everyday Activities and Well-being Identified

These analyses were combined with magnetic resonance tomography at CIMH for another group of 83 persons. The volume of gray brain matter was measured to find out which brain areas play a role in these everyday processes. It was found that the subgenual cingulate cortex, a section of the cerebral cortex, is important to the interaction between everyday activity and affective well-being. It is in this brain region where emotions and resistance to psychiatric disorders are regulated. The authors identified this brain region to be a decisive neural correlate that mediates the relationship between physical activity and subjective energy. "Persons with a smaller volume of gray brain matter in this region and a higher risk of psychiatric disorders felt less full of energy when they were physically inactive," Heike Tost describes the results. "After everyday activity, however, these persons felt even more filled with energy than persons with a larger brain volume."

Specific Use of Physical Activity in Everyday Life

Professor Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Director of CIMH and Medical Director of the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Clinic, concludes that "the results suggest that physical activity in everyday life is beneficial to well-being, in particular in persons susceptible to psychiatric disorders." In future, the findings of the study might be used in a smartphone app that will motivate users to be active to enhance their well-being in case of decreasing energy." It remains to be studied whether everyday activities may change the well-being and the brain volume and how these results may help prevent and treat psychiatric disorders," Urs Braun says.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201125104348.htm

Bursts of exercise can lead to significant improvements in indicators of metabolic health

November 16, 2020

Science Daily/Massachusetts General Hospital

Short bursts of physical exercise induce changes in the body's levels of metabolites that correlate to, and may help gauge, an individual's cardiometabolic, cardiovascular and long-term health, a study by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found. In a paper published in Circulation, the research team describes how approximately 12 minutes of acute cardiopulmonary exercise impacted more than 80% of circulating metabolites, including pathways linked to a wide range of favorable health outcomes, thus identifying potential mechanisms that could contribute to a better understanding of cardiometabolic benefits of exercise.

"Much is known about the effects of exercise on cardiac, vascular and inflammatory systems of the body, but our study provides a comprehensive look at the metabolic impact of exercise by linking specific metabolic pathways to exercise response variables and long-term health outcomes," says investigator Gregory Lewis, MD, section head of Heart Failure at MGH and senior author of the study. "What was striking to us was the effects a brief bout of exercise can have on the circulating levels of metabolites that govern such key bodily functions as insulin resistance, oxidative stress, vascular reactivity, inflammation and longevity."

The MGH study drew on data from the Framingham Heart Study to measure the levels of 588 circulating metabolites before and immediately after 12 minutes of vigorous exercise in 411 middle-aged men and women. The research team detected favorable shifts in a number of metabolites for which resting levels were previously shown to be associated with cardiometabolic disease. For example, glutamate, a key metabolite linked to heart disease, diabetes and decreased longevity, fell by 29%. And DMGV, a metabolite associated with increased risk of diabetes and liver disease, dropped by 18%. The study further found that metabolic responses may be modulated by factors other than exercise, including a person's sex and body mass index, with obesity possibly conferring partial resistance to the benefits of exercise.

"Intriguingly, our study found that different metabolites tracked with different physiologic responses to exercise, and might therefore provide unique signatures in the bloodstream that reveal if a person is physically fit, much the way current blood tests determine how well the kidney and liver are functioning," notes co-first author Matthew Nayor, MD, MPH, with the Heart Failure and Transplantation Section in the Division of Cardiology at MGH. "Lower levels of DMGV, for example, could signify higher levels of fitness."

The Framingham Heart Study, which began in 1948 and now embraces three generations of participants, allowed MGH researchers to apply the same signatures used in the current study population to stored blood from earlier generations of participants. By studying the long-term effects of metabolic signatures of exercise responses, researchers were able to predict the future state of an individual's health, and how long they are likely to live.

"We're starting to better understand the molecular underpinnings of how exercise affects the body and use that knowledge to understand the metabolic architecture around exercise response patterns," says co-first author Ravi Shah, MD, with the Heart Failure and Transplantation Section in the Division of Cardiology at MGH. "This approach has the potential to target people who have high blood pressure or many other metabolic risk factors in response to exercise, and set them on a healthier trajectory early in their lives."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201116125606.htm

Exercise classes can reduce loneliness, social isolation in seniors

November 12, 2020

Science Daily/Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Seniors who joined group exercise classes experienced decreased loneliness and social isolation, according to a new study conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic. The classes have continued virtually since March, and early results suggest the online versions are also effective.

Older adults who joined group exercise classes experienced decreased loneliness and social isolation, according to a new Cedars-Sinai study conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic. The classes have continued virtually since March, and early results suggest the online versions are also effective.

Seniors face increased risk for developing serious health issues or even death if they lack social connections or feel alone. Loneliness is connected to higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicide. Experts say social isolation can have the same impact on an older person's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Both loneliness and social isolation are widespread issues in the U.S., where more than a third of adults 45 and older feel lonely and nearly a quarter of those 65 and older are socially isolated, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. But few studies have examined the most effective ways to improve social connectedness among seniors.

"As the demographics of our country shift, more people are living alone than ever before," said the study's lead author, Allison Moser Mays, MD, a Cedars-Sinai geriatrician. "The number of adults over the age of 65 in the U.S. is expected to reach more than 70 million by 2030 -- double what it is now. We need sustainable ways to help this burgeoning population thrive as they age, or there will be widespread consequences."

Mays and her co-investigators partnered with local community groups to enroll participants in evidence-based exercise and health management classes for people over 50 at nine sites in Los Angeles neighborhoods with a known concentration of low-income older adults. All locations -- which included libraries, senior centers and recreation centers -- were accessible for those with mobility limitations and had access to parking and public transit.

The study tracked 382 participants ages 52 to 104 from July 2018 through March 2020, when the pandemic forced the classes to move online. Some people were referred by their Cedars-Sinai physician during an office visit. Others found the program through community outreach.

All participants met with a health coach who assessed their needs and helped them select one of four courses, which research has shown improve other aspects of health: Arthritis Exercise, EnhancedFitness, Tai Chi for Arthritis, and Chronic Disease Self-Management. The three exercise classes proved the most popular, and individuals had to attend at least one session to be included in the study.

Participants completed questionnaires about their social connections and loneliness prior to starting their course and after six months. At the end of that period, investigators found a 6.9% decrease in loneliness and a 3.3% improvement in social connectedness, after adjusting for age, gender and other characteristics. The study was published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

"These classes had already been shown to reduce the risk of falls in seniors, and this was the first demonstration that they also reduce social isolation, to the best of our knowledge," Mays said.

The Leveraging Exercise to Age in Place (LEAP) classes have been supported by a three-year grant from the AARP Foundation. Cedars-Sinai has adopted the successful programming under the Community Engagement Department.

"The results of this study are very exciting because we've provided a model that other health systems can easily replicate by integrating evidence-based programs in the community with their organizations. They don't need to reinvent the wheel," said senior study author Sonja Rosen, MD, chief of Geriatric Medicine at Cedars-Sinai. "The health coach is the key ingredient because they make sure that nobody falls through the cracks."

The health coach has been especially crucial since the pandemic began when classes moved online and participants sometimes have needed help figuring out how to log on to the platform. That effort has been paying off.

Of the 59 participants who continued with the virtual workouts, there has not been a statistically significant change in loneliness or social isolation one month after stay at home orders began, according to data Mays presented over the weekend at the Gerontological Society of America's annual meeting. The investigators will analyze further data as the classes continue. They're also piloting another program that pairs older adults with younger participants for one-on-one workout sessions online.

"Cedars-Sinai treats more patients over the age of 80 than any other academic health system in the country," Rosen said. "We're really at the epicenter of this growing population of older adults and figuring out the best ways to care for them so they can successfully age in place."

Rosen said efforts like the LEAP program helped Cedars-Sinai earn its designation as an Age-Friendly Health System Committed to Care Excellence earlier this year. The distinction, which highlights care tailored to older adults, is part of a national initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201112155830.htm

Exercise and nutrition regimen benefit physical, cognitive health

12-week double-blind control trial in 148 Air Force airmen

October 19, 2020

Science Daily/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau

Researchers studied the effects of a 12-week exercise regimen on 148 active-duty Air Force airmen, half of whom also received a twice-daily nutrient beverage that included protein; the omega-3 fatty acid, DHA; lutein; phospholipids; vitamin D; B vitamins and other micronutrients; along with a muscle-promoting compound known as HMB. Both groups improved in physical and cognitive function, with added gains among those who regularly consumed the nutritional beverage, the team reports.

The findings appear in the journal Scientific Reports.

Participants were randomly assigned to the two groups. The exercise regimen combined strength training and high-intensity interval aerobic fitness challenges. One group received the nutritional beverage and the other consumed a placebo beverage that lacked the added nutrients. Neither the researchers nor the participants knew who received the nutrient-enriched beverage or placebo.

"The exercise intervention alone improved strength and endurance, mobility and stability, and participants also saw increases in several measures of cognitive function. They had better episodic memory and processed information more efficiently at the end of the 12 weeks. And they did better on tests that required them to solve problems they had never encountered before, an aptitude called fluid intelligence," said Aron Barbey, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who led the study with postdoctoral researcher Christopher Zwilling.

"Those who also consumed the nutritional supplement saw all of these improvements and more. For example, they were better able to retain new information in their working memory and had quicker responses on tests of fluid intelligence than those taking the placebo," Barbey said.

Physical power increased in both groups as a result of the physical training, Zwilling said.

"Power is a measure of physical fitness that is based on several factors, such as how fast a participant can pull a heavy sled over a set distance, how far they can toss a weighted ball, and how many pushups, pullups or situps they can perform in a set time period," he said.

The physical training reduced participants' body fat percentage and increased their oxygen-uptake efficiency, or VO2 max. The airmen also performed better than they had initially on several measures of cognitive function. The most notable of these was an increase in the accuracy of their responses to problems designed to measure fluid intelligence.

"But we also wanted to know whether taking the supplement conferred an advantage above and beyond the effect of exercise," Zwilling said. "We saw that it did, for example in relationship to resting heart rate, which went down more in those who took the supplement than in those who didn't."

Participants who consumed the nutritional beverage also saw greater improvements in their ability to retain and process information. And their reaction time on tests of fluid intelligence improved more than their peers who took the placebo, the researchers found.

"Our work motivates the design of novel multimodal interventions that incorporate both aerobic fitness training and nutritional supplementation, and illustrates that their benefits extend beyond improvements in physical fitness to enhance multiple measures of cognitive function," Barbey said.

The U. of I. team conducted the intervention with study co-author Adam Strang, a scientist in the Applied Neuroscience Branch of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, along with his colleagues in the Air Force Research Laboratory. The U. of I. team also worked with research fellow and study co-author Tapas Das and his colleagues at Abbott Nutrition, who led the design of the nutritional beverage, which is a mixture of nutrients targeting both muscle and brain. The specially designed beverage provided ingredients that previous studies have shown are associated with improved physical cognitive function.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201019103508.htm

Girls benefit from doing sports

September 29, 2020

Science Daily/University of Montreal

Extracurricular sport in middle childhood diminishes subsequent ADHD symptoms in girls, but not in boys, a new study suggests

Girls -- but not boys -- who participate actively in school sports activities in middle childhood show improved behaviour and attentiveness in early adolescence, suggests a new Canadian study published in Preventative Medicine.

"Girls who do regular extracurricular sports between ages 6 and 10 show fewer symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at age 12, compared to girls who seldom do," said Linda Pagani, a professor at Université de Montréal's School of Psychoeducation.

"Surprisingly, however, boys do not appear to gain any behavioural benefit from sustained involvement in sports during middle childhood," said Pagani, who led the study co-authored by her students Marie-Josée Harbec and Geneviève Fortin and McGill University associate medical professor Tracie Barnett.

As the team prepared their research, "it was unclear to what extent organized physical activity is beneficial for children with ADHD symptoms," recalled Pagani.

"Past studies have varied widely in quality, thus blurring the true association between sport and behavioural development." She added: "On top of that, "past research has not acknowledged that boys and girls are different in how they present ADHD symptoms."

A chance to get organized

ADHD harms children's ability to process information and learn at school, Pagani explained. Sport helps young people develop life skills and supportive relationships with their peers and adults. It offers a chance to get organized under some form of adult influence or supervision.

"Thus, from a public-health perspective, extracurricular sport has the potential to be a positive, non-stigmatizing and engaging approach to promote psychological well-being and could thus be viewed as behaviour therapy for youth with ADHD," Pagani said.

"Sports are especially beneficial if they begin in early childhood. And so, since using concentration and interpersonal skills are essential elements of sport, in our study we undertook to examine whether it would result in reductions in ADHD symptoms over the long term."

Pagani and her team came to their conclusions after examining data from a Quebec cohort of children born in 1997 and 1998, part of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development coordinated by the Institut de la statistique du Québec.

Parents of the 991 girls and 1,006 boys in the study reported on whether their sons and daughters were in an extracurricular physical activity that required a coach or instructor between ages 6 and 10. At age 12 years, teachers rated the children's behaviour compared to their classmates. Pagani's team then analyzed the data to identify any significant link between sustained participation and later ADHD symptoms, discarding many possible confounding factors.

"Our goal was to eliminate any pre-existing conditions of the children or families that could throw a different light on our results," said Pagani.

'Boys more impulsive'

Why do girls with ADHD benefit from sports, but not boys?

"In childhood, boys with ADHD are more impulsive and more motor-skilled than girls -- as a result, boys are more likely to receive medication for their ADHD, so faster diagnosis and treatment for boys in middle childhood could diminish the detectable benefits of sport," Pagani said. "They might be there; they're just harder to tease out."

"In girls, on the other hand, ADHD is more likely to go undetected -- and girls' difficulties may be even more tolerated at home and in school. Parents of boys, by contrast, might be more inclined to enroll them in sports and other physical activities to help them."

She added: "We know that sporting activities have other numerous benefits for mental health of all children. However, for reducing ADHD symptoms, middle childhood sports in elementary school seem more noteworthy for girls."

That's why structured extracurricular activities that demand physical skill and effort under the supervision of a coach or instructor could be valuable to any official policy aimed at promoting behavioral development, the UdeM researchers maintain.

Concluded Pagani: "Sports activities in early childhood can help girls develop essential social skills that will be useful later and ultimately play a key role in their personal, financial and economic success."

The work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanties Research Council of Canada and other funders, including the Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200929123524.htm

Soldiers, athletes could improve outcomes from traumatic brain injuries

September 4, 2019

Science Daily/Purdue University

A traumatic brain injury is often easily suspected and can be confirmed and treated if necessary following an injury using a blood analysis, but scientists are reporting that even one mild blast to the brain can cause very subtle but permanent damage as well. Urine analysis taken within one week of a mild to traumatic brain injury also can provide faster diagnosis and treatment for such injuries. 

"We're finding that even a mild blast can cause long-term, life-changing health issues," said Riyi Shi, a professor of neuroscience and biomedical engineering in Purdue University's Department of Basic Medical Sciences. "The individual appears to be fine, and it's difficult to tell if you just look at a person. But the fact is that these types of hits are multiplied over years and often ignored until someone reaches an age when other factors come into play. Identifying and treating these incidents sooner can help mitigate issues later in life."

 A study led by Shi reports that checking the urine within seven days following such an injury, even a mild injury with no immediately obvious symptoms, could be less invasive, faster and help reduce the risk of long-term health issues including Parkinson's disease.

 "Even at one day post injury, a simple urine analysis can reveal elevations in the neurotoxin acrolein. The presence of this "biomarker" alerts us to the injury, creating an opportunity for intervention," said Shi, who has appointments in Purdue's College of Veterinary Medicine and Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering. "This early detection and subsequent treatment window could offer tremendous benefits for long-term patient neurological health."

 The research paper, titled "Acrolein-mediated Alpha-synuclein Pathology Involvement in the Early Post-injury Pathogenesis of Mild Blast-induced Parkinsonian Neurodegeneration," was published in July in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience.

 "Most people have heard that traumatic brain injuries are linked to Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, dating back as far as to Muhammad Ali and even earlier," Shi said. "The seriousness of this relationship is readily apparent; however, we want to, for the first time, implement a mechanism or protocol capable of connecting brain injuries to these diseases. We can accomplish this by testing for acrolein, which is well-researched and already recognized as a very important pathological factor in Parkinson's disease. This study establishes a solid link between the two and opens the door for faster treatments utilizing acrolein urine tests during the days following a traumatic episode."

 In the research study, a urine analysis tested for an increased elevation of acrolein or oxidative stress within one week following a neurological injury.

 "What's important is that urine tests can be performed much easier than blood tests or other more invasive medical procedures currently available," Shi said. "And it has been shown that individuals who experience brain injuries are three times more likely than their age-matched peers to develop neurological disease. If we can establish a protocol to routinely test urine following a traumatic brain injury, we can improve treatment options earlier and potentially offer better long-term outcomes."

 More than 500,000 people in the U.S. are currently living with Parkinson's disease, and another 50,000 people are diagnosed with this neurodegenerative disorder every year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190904154005.htm