A global study involving 28,000-plus people offers the strongest evidence to date that lowering high blood pressure in seniors can reduce the risk of dementia, researchers said Tuesday.

Without significant treatment breakthroughs for dementia, reducing the risk of developing the disease would be "a welcome step forward," Ruth Peters, associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, said in a news release.

"Our study provides the highest grade of available evidence to show that blood pressure lowering treatment over several years reduces the risk of dementia, and we did not see any evidence of harm," said Peters, who is program lead for dementia at The George Institute's Global Brain Health Initiative in Newtown, New South Wales, Australia.

What remains unknown is whether additional blood pressure lowering "in people who already have it well-controlled," or whether starting treatment earlier in life, would reduce the long-term risk of dementia, Peters said.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2022/10/25/3871666712659/

Regular physical activity may boost the effectiveness of the COVID-19 jab, with the level of protection afforded against serious infection rising in tandem with the amount of physical activity done, suggests research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

There’s now convincing evidence that regular physical activity helps ward off the consequences of serious COVID-19 infection, reducing the risk of hospital admission, intensive care, assisted ventilation or death. Similarly, vaccination also minimises these risks.

Previously published research on the additive effects of physical activity on vaccination against various infections, suggests that it enhances the body’s antibody response, but it’s not known if this might also apply to SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 infection.

To try and find out, the researchers drew on anonymised medical records, and wearable activity tracker data for healthcare workers belonging to a medical insurance scheme as well as a health promotion and behavioural change programme.

Participants were mapped to physical activity categories using their average monthly levels in the 2 years preceding the start of the study: under 60 minutes of a week (low); at least 60-149 minutes (medium); and 150 minutes + (high).

COVID-19 swab test results were analysed for 53,771 participants with low levels of physical activity, 62,721 with medium levels, and 79,952 with high levels.

Complete health, COVID-19 vaccination (mid-February to end of October 2021; Jannsen Ad26.COV2.S COVID-19) and physical activity data were obtained for 196,444 adults who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2.

Vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 among fully vaccinated people in the low physical activity category was 60%. In other words, the risk of hospital admission was reduced by 60% in this group.

Comparable risk reductions for those in the medium and high physical activity groups were, respectively, 72% and 86%.

Those who were fully vaccinated and who clocked up high weekly levels of physical activity were nearly 3 times less likely to be admitted to hospital than those who were vaccinated but in the low physical activity category.

Similarly, those in the medium physical activity category were nearly 1.5 times less likely to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19 infection.

“The findings suggest a possible dose–response where high levels of physical activity were associated with higher vaccine effectiveness,” write the researchers.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/968666

Using the James Webb Space Telescope to look back in time at the early universe, astronomers discovered a surprise: a cluster of galaxies merging together around a rare red quasar within a massive black hole. The findings by Johns Hopkins University and an international team offer an unprecedented opportunity to observe how billions of years ago galaxies coalesced into the modern universe.

"We think something dramatic is about to happen in these systems," said co-author Andrey Vayner, a Johns Hopkins postdoctoral fellow who studies the evolution of galaxies. "The galaxy is at this perfect moment in its lifetime, about to transform and look entirely different in a few billion years."

The work is in press in Astrophysical Journal Letters and available today on the arXiv paper repository.

The James Webb Space Telescope, launched last December by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, is the largest, most powerful telescope ever sent into space. Its initial general observations were revealed in July, but this quasar imagery is one of just 13 "early look" projects selected through a highly competitive global competition to decide where the telescope is pointed during its first months of operation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.10074#

A recent study published in NeuroImage: Clinical used state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques to determine what brain changes may cause childhood ADHD to go into remission. Christienne Damatac and colleagues looked at brain changes in those diagnosed with ADHD over 16 years. Their findings suggest that improved hyperactivity and inattentiveness symptoms result from increased white matter density in the brain region known as the left corticospinal tract. Additionally, reduced ADHD symptoms were associated with more neural connections in the same region.

ADHD is a common childhood diagnosis. However, some are fortunate enough to grow out of the challenging symptoms by adulthood, and others never do. Understanding why this is so may lead to important innovations in treating the disorder. One hypothesis is that the malfunctioning parts of the brain that result in ADHD symptoms are never able to repair themselves. Instead, for some, as the brain develops, other regions take over the responsibilities of the damaged areas. Dramatic and colleagues were curious if this was so and if these changes would persist over time.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221315822200122X

Stem cell-derived neurons from combat veterans with and without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) provide insights into how genetics can make someone more susceptible to developing PTSD following trauma exposure, according to a study conducted by scientists from several research institutions, including Yale School of Medicine.

Post-traumatic stress disorder can develop following severe trauma and is an enormous public health problem for both veterans and civilians. However, the extent to which genetic and environmental factors contribute to individual clinical outcomes remains unknown.

To bridge this information gap, the research team studied a cohort of 39 combat veterans with and without PTSD who were recruited from the James J. Peters Bronx Veterans Affairs Hospital. Veterans underwent skin biopsies and their skin cells were reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-022-01161-y

A new University of Alberta study shows how quickly extreme conspiracy theories about monkeypox spread on TikTok in the wake of news about outbreaks this past spring

Timothy Caulfield and Marco Zenone of the U of A’s health law institute analyzed nearly 900 videos about monkeypox posted to the social media platform over a day in mid-May 2022, just after the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement about outbreaks of the disease in numerous countries where it isn’t endemic.

https://calgarysun.com/news/local-news/u-of-a-study-tracks-speedy-spread-of-monkeypox-misinformation-on-tiktok/wcm/c03ce40b-05ee-4be1-943a-3d2ac521c3f0

Older people who get five hours of sleep a night or less may face a far greater risk of developing two or more chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes, compared to people who sleep longer, a new study suggests.

The research, published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, tracked the impact of sleep duration on the health of more than 7,000 men and women at the ages of 50, 60 and 70.

This was done via a 25-year follow up of participants in the Whitehall II cohort study involving members of the British civil service.

The British and French researchers, led by University College London, found that sleeping for five hours or less at the ages of 50, 60, and 70 was linked to a 30% to 40% increased risk of developing multiple chronic diseases versus people who slept for up to seven hours.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2022/10/18/five-hours-sleep-disease-risk-study/2071666105265/

Abstract Social soft robotics may provide a new solution for alleviating human pain and fear. Here, we introduce a hand-held soft robot that can be clenched by the wearer. The robot comprises small airbags that can be inflated to provide the wearer with a feeling of being clenched. We then conducted an in-depth study of 66 adults who participated in a pain research protocol using thermal stimulation to investigate the effect of wearing the robot on pain perception and fear of injections. Pain assessment scale scores for perceived pain decreased significantly (p<0.05) when participants wore the robot compared with the baseline condition in which the robot was not worn. In addition, the saliva test results showed a downward trend in oxytocin level when the robot provided the wearer with haptic feedback via the inflation of the internal airbags in response to the wearer’s clench.