TUESDAY, Sept. 12, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Bolstering the notion that a strong body equals a strong mind, new research indicates that the more inactive seniors are, the higher their risk for dementia.The finding stems from a look at the onset of dementia among nearly 50,000 Brits.All were at least 60 years old when information about typical daily activity routines was entered into the UK Biobank database at some point between 2006 and 2010.Their risk for dementia was then tracked for an average of about seven years.“We looked into whether sitting too much can increase the risk of getting dementia,” said lead author David Raichlen, a professor of biological sciences and anthropology at the University of Southern California. “Turns out, if you're sedentary for over 10 hours a day,...

FRIDAY, Sept. 8, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Therapies based on a hormone people make while exercising may be the next frontier in treating Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study.Researchers have found that the exercise-induced hormone irisin may reduce both the plaque and the tau tangles characteristic of the disease.Before this, this same team developed the first 3D human cell culture models of Alzheimer’s disease, which it was able to use in this new research into the impact of irisin on amyloid beta in the brain.Physical exercise had already been shown to reduce amyloid beta deposits in mouse models of Alzheimer’s, but it wasn’t clear how.The increase of circulating levels of the muscle-derived hormone irisin through exercise regulates glucose and lipid metabolism in...

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 6, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Being fit doesn’t just help your body -- it also helps your mind, a new study reports.People in better physical condition appear to have less need for drugs to treat mood disorders, Norwegian researchers have found.“We find that people who are in better shape fill fewer prescriptions for anxiety and depression medications,” said senior author Linda Ernstsen, an associate professor of public health and nursing at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.For the study, researchers analyzed data from the Trøndelag Health Study, which has gathered health data since 1984 for more than 250,000 residents of that Norwegian county.The research group compared that data with information from the Norwegian Prescribed Drug...