A wine a day associated with lower risk of depression
Drinking wine in moderation may be associated with a lower risk of developing depression, according to research published in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine. The reported findings by the PREDIMED research Network suggest that the moderate amounts of alcohol consumed may have similar protective effects on depression to those that have been observed for coronary heart disease.
31 aug 2013--Alcohol consumption around the world is increasing, and previous studies have shown that heavy alcohol intake is related to mental health problems, such as depression. Few studies have looked at the relationship between mental health and moderate alcohol intake. In a new article in BMC Medicine, researchers report on a cohort study that followed over 5,500 light-to-moderate drinkers for up to seven years. The results show an inverse relationship between alcohol intake and incidence of depression.
The study participants are from the PREDIMED study, aged between 55 and 80 years old, had never suffered from depression or had alcohol-related problems when the study started. Their alcohol consumption, mental health and lifestyles were followed for up to seven years through yearly visits, repeated medical exams, interviews with dieticians and questionnaires.
The main alcoholic beverage drunk by the study participants was wine. When analysed, it was shown that those who drank moderate amounts of wine each week were less likely to suffer from depression. The lowest rates of depression were seen in the group of individuals who drank two to seven small glasses of wine per week. These results remained significant even when the group adjusted them for lifestyle and social factors, such as smoking, diet and marital status.
Professor Miguel A. Martínez-González, from the University of Navarra (Spain), senior author of the paper, said, 'Lower amounts of alcohol intake might exert protection in a similar way to what has been observed for coronary heart disease. In fact, it is believed that depression and coronary heart disease share some common disease mechanisms.' Previous studies have indicated that non-alcoholic compounds in the wine, such as resveratrol and other phenolic compounds, may have protective effects on certain areas of the brain.
More information: Gea, A. et al. Alcohol intake, wine consumption and the development of depression: the PREDIMED study, BMC Medicine (in press).
Provided by BioMed Central
Friday, August 30, 2013
Broccoli could be key in the fight against osteoarthritis
A compound found in broccoli could be key to preventing or slowing the progress of the most common form of arthritis, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA).
30 aug 2013--Results from the laboratory study show that sulforaphane slows down the destruction of cartilage in joints associated with painful and often debilitating osteoarthritis. The researchers found that mice fed a diet rich in the compound had significantly less cartilage damage and osteoarthritis than those that were not.
The study, which also examined human cartilage cells and cow cartilage tissue, was funded by medical research charity Arthritis Research UK, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's (BBSRC) Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC) and The Dunhill Medical Trust.
Sulforaphane is released when eating cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts and cabbage, but particularly broccoli. Previous research has suggested that sulforaphane has anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties, but this is the first major study into its effects on joint health.
The researchers discovered that sulforaphane blocks the enzymes that cause joint destruction by stopping a key molecule known to cause inflammation. They wanted to find out if the compound got into joints in sufficient amounts to be effective and their findings are published today in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.
More than 8.5 million people in the UK have osteoarthritis, a degenerative disease affecting the hands, feet, spine, hips and knees in particular. According to Arthritis Research UK, the annual cost of the condition to the NHS is £5.2 billion. In 2011, more than 77,000 knee and 66,000 hip replacements were carried out due to osteoarthritis – approximately one every four minutes.
Aging and obesity are the most common contributors to the condition and due to their effects, the number of people in the UK consulting a GP about knee osteoarthritis alone could rise from 4.7 million in 2010 to 8.3 million by 2035. Currently one in five people over the age of 45 has osteoarthritis in their knee. There is no cure or effective treatment for the disease other than pain relief, which is often inadequate, or joint replacement.
The study involved researchers from UEA's schools of Biological Sciences, Pharmacy and Norwich Medical School, along with the University of Oxford and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.
Researchers from the School of Biological Sciences and Norwich Medical School are now embarking on a small scale trial in osteoarthritis patients due to have knee replacement surgery, to see if eating broccoli has similar effects on the human joint. If successful, they hope it will lead to funding for a large scale clinical trial to show the effect of broccoli on osteoarthritis, joint function and pain itself.
Ian Clark, professor of musculoskeletal biology at UEA and the lead researcher, said: "The results from this study are very promising. We have shown that this works in the three laboratory models we have tried, in cartilage cells, tissue and mice. We now want to show this works in humans. It would be very powerful if we could.
"As well as treating those who already have the condition, you need to be able to tell healthy people how to protect their joints into the future. There is currently no way in to the disease pharmaceutically and you cannot give healthy people drugs unnecessarily, so this is where diet could be a safe alternative.
"Although surgery is very successful, it is not really an answer. Once you have osteoarthritis, being able to slow its progress and the progression to surgery is really important. Prevention would be preferable and changes to lifestyle, like diet, may be the only way to do that."
Prof Clark added: "Osteoarthritis is a major cause of disability. It is a huge health burden but a huge financial burden too, which will get worse in an increasingly aging and obese population such as ours.
"This study is important because it is about how diet might work in osteoarthritis. Once you know that you can look at other dietary compounds which could protect the joint and ultimately you can advise people what they should be eating for joint health. Developing new strategies for combating age-related diseases such as osteoarthritis is vital, both to improve the quality of life for sufferers and to reduce the economic burden on society."
Arthritis Research UK's medical director Prof Alan Silman said: "This is an interesting study with promising results as it suggests that a common vegetable, broccoli, might have health benefits for people with osteoarthritis and even possibly protect people from developing the disease in the first place.
"Until now research has failed to show that food or diet can play any part in reducing the progression of osteoarthritis, so if these findings can be replicated in humans, it would be quite a breakthrough. We know that exercise and keeping to a healthy weight can improve people's symptoms and reduce the chances of the disease progressing, but this adds another layer in our understanding of how diet could play its part."
For the small scale trial, funded by DRINC, half the 40 patients will be given 'super broccoli' - bred to be high in sulforaphane - to eat for two weeks before their operation. Once the surgery has taken place the researchers will look at whether the compound has altered joint metabolism and if it can be detected in the replaced joints.
More information: 'Sulforaphane represses matrix-degrading proteases and protects cartilage from destruction in vitro and in vivo' by Rose Davidson, Orla Jupp, Rachel De Ferrars, Colin Kay, Kirsty Culley, Rosemary Norton, Clare Driscoll, Tonia Vincent, Simon Donell, Yongping Bao and Ian Clark is published in Arthritis & Rheumatism on Wednesday August 28.
Provided by University of East Anglia
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Olive oil is good for you—in more ways than one
Credit: Shutterstuck
Olive oil is a key component of the Mediterranean diet and is considered by many to be a natural health-food product. Until recently, the known protective effects of olive oil against oxidative stress-associated diseases, such as cardiovascular, cancer, or neurodegenerative diseases, had been attributed to its high monounsaturated fat content.
29 aug 2013--The EU-funded project EUROLIVE ('The effect of olive oil consumption on oxidative damage in European populations') investigated whether there might be other chemical factors contributing to the documented beneficial health effects of olive oil.
In particular, project partners, led by researchers at the Mar Institute of Medical Research in Barcelona, wanted to know if olive oil rich in phenolic compounds, such as virgin olive oil, would have particular health benefits beyond those already established for olive oil in general.
The researchers did six clinical trials in which 200 healthy volunteers were given 25 millilitres per day of three similar olive oils for three weeks. The olive oils had different polyphenol content. The dose was similar to the amount typically ingested daily in Mediterranean countries.
The results showed that the higher the polyphenolic content of the olive oil consumed, the higher the increase in HDL cholesterol levels (so-called good cholesterol).
Positive effects were also recorded for the atherogenic index - the total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol, and the oxidative damage of lipids decreased in a linear manner with olive oil polyphenolic content. Lipid oxidation is considered a high risk factor for the development of coronary heart disease.
Finally, the results of the EUROLIVE project demonstrated that consuming 25 millilitres of olive oil per day, in place of other fats, did not lead to participants gaining weight.
For many, these results put an end to the debate over the antioxidant properties of olive oil polyphenols when consumed, and confirm the added value of virgin olive oil as opposed to other oils in protecting against cardiovascular disease and other risk factors.
EUROLIVE received EUR 1.9 million in EU funding. The researchers completed their work in December 2004.
Clinical outcomes similar for elderly with PCI, CABG
For older patients with unprotected left main coronary artery disease, clinical outcomes are similar with percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass grafting, according to research published in the Sept. 1 issue of The American Journal of Cardiology.
28 aug 2013—For older patients with unprotected left main coronary artery disease, clinical outcomes are similar with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), according to research published in the Sept. 1 issue of The American Journal of Cardiology.
Mahboob Alam, M.D., from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and colleagues performed aggregate data meta-analyses of the clinical outcomes in studies comparing PCI with CABG for patients with a mean age of 70 years or older, and with unprotected left main coronary artery disease. A total of 10 studies involving 2,386 patients (909 undergoing PCI and 1,477 undergoing CABG) were included.
The researchers found that presentation with acute coronary syndrome was more likely among patients in the PCI group (59.6 percent) versus those in the CABG group (44.8 percent). PCI correlated with a significantly shorter hospital stay. At 30 days, and 12 and 22 months, there were no significant differences between PCI and CABG for all-cause mortality, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events. PCI correlated with significantly lower rates of strokes at 30 days and 12 months (odds ratio, 0.14 for both), and with significantly higher rates of repeat revascularization at 22 months (odds ratio, 4.34). Subgroup analysis of patients aged 75 years and older resulted in consistent findings.
"In conclusion, older patients (age ?70 years) with unprotected left main coronary artery disease had comparable rates of all-cause mortality, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events after PCI or CABG," the authors write.
Comprehensive Parkinson's biomarker test has prognostic and diagnostic value
Perelman School of Medicine researchers at the University of Pennsylvania report the first biomarker results reported from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), showing that a comprehensive test of protein biomarkers in spinal fluid have prognostic and diagnostic value in early stages of Parkinson's disease. The study is reported in JAMA Neurology.
27 aug 2013--Compared to healthy adults, the study found that people with early Parkinson's had lower levels of amyloid beta, tau and alpha synuclein in their spinal fluid. In addition, those with lower concentrations of tau and alpha synuclein had greater motor dysfunction. And early Parkinson's patients with low levels of amyloid beta and tau were more likely to be classified as having the postural instability-gait disturbance- dominant (PIGD) motor type of disease, where falling, freezing, and walking difficulty are common.
"Biomarkers for Parkinson's disease such as these could help us diagnose patients earlier, and we've now shown that the simultaneous measurement of a variety of neurodegenerative disease proteins is valuable," said study senior author Leslie M. Shaw, PhD, professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn Medicine. Dr. Shaw and John Q. Trojanowski, MD, PhD, director of the Penn Udall Center for Parkinson's Research, are co-leaders of the Bioanalytics Core for the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative, an international observational clinical study sponsored by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.
The team evaluated spinal fluid collected from baseline visits of the first 102 PPMI participants - 63 with early, untreated Parkinson's disease and 39 healthy controls. The spinal fluid was evaluated for levels of five biomarkers: amyloid beta, total tau, phosphorylated tau, alpha synuclein and the ratio of total tau to amyloid beta. Spinal fluid measures of amyloid and tau are currently used in research to distinguish Alzheimer's disease from otherneurodegenerative diseases. In contrast to Alzheimer's, where tau levels are higher than healthy controls, the study found that early Parkinson's patients had lower levels of tau than healthy controls. One reason, researchers suggest, could be that interactions between tau and alpha synuclein may limit the release of tau into the cerebrospinal fluid of Parkinson's patients.
"Through PPMI, we are hoping to identify subgroups of Parkinson's patients whose disease is likely to progress at a different rate, as early as possible," said Dr. Trojanowski. "Early prediction is critical, for both motor and dementia symptoms."
The Parkinson's PIGD motor subtype has been associated with a more rapid cognitive decline as well as greater functional disability. Using the biomarker test, this initial study found that levels of all spinal fluid biomarkers were lower in the PIGD motor subtype than other types of PD as well as healthy controls. In addition, amyloid beta and phosphorylated tau were at lower levels in the PIGD motor subtype, but were no different in tremor or indeterminate subtypes compared to normal controls.
This spinal fluid testing procedure is only being used in research studies, and will be continued to be evaluated and validated in a larger study of the PPMI cohorts.
In addition to leading the Bioanalytics Core of PPMI, Penn's Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center is one of the two dozen trial sites where volunteers are evaluated throughout the PPMI study. The Penn PDMDC has been part of the PPMI group studying people with early Parkinson's disease as well as healthy adults since 2010, and began enrollment for a new, pre-symptomatic arm of the study in the summer of 2013. The pre-motor arm of PPMI is enrolling participants who do not have Parkinson's disease and are living with one of three potential risk factors for PD: a reduced sense of smell (hyposmia); rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD; a disorder in which the individual acts out his/her dreams); or a mutation in the LRRK2 gene (the single greatest genetic contributor to PD known to date).
"In addition to biomarker tests, validating risk factors could enable earlier detection of the disease and open new avenues in the quest for therapies that could slow or stop disease progression," said PPMI trial site study leader Matthew Stern, MD, professor of Neurology and director of Penn's Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center.
More information: JAMA Neurol. Published online August 26, 2013. doi:10.1001/.jamaneurol.2013.3861
Provided by University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Monday, August 26, 2013
Copper identified as culprit in Alzheimer's disease
Copper appears to be one of the main environmental factors that trigger the onset and enhance the progression of Alzheimer's disease by preventing the clearance and accelerating the accumulation of toxic proteins in the brain. That is the conclusion of a study appearing today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
26 aug 2013--"It is clear that, over time, copper's cumulative effect is to impair the systems by which amyloid beta is removed from the brain," said Rashid Deane, Ph.D., a research professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Neurosurgery, member of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine, and lead author of the study. "This impairment is one of the key factors that cause the protein to accumulate in the brain and form the plaques that are the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease."
Copper's presence in the food supply is ubiquitous. It is found in drinking water carried by copper pipes, nutritional supplements, and in certain foods such as red meats, shellfish, nuts, and many fruits and vegetables. The mineral plays an important and beneficial role in nerve conduction, bone growth, the formation of connective tissue, and hormone secretion.
However, the new study shows that copper can also accumulate in the brain and cause the blood brain barrier – the system that controls what enters and exits the brain – to break down, resulting in the toxic accumulation of theprotein amyloid beta, a by-product of cellular activity. Using both mice and human brain cells Deane and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments that have pinpointed the molecular mechanisms by which copper accelerates the pathology of Alzheimer's disease.
Under normal circumstances, amyloid beta is removed from the brain by a protein called lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1). These proteins – which line the capillaries that supply the brain with blood – bind with the amyloid beta found in the brain tissue and escort them into the blood vessels where they are removed from the brain.
The research team – "dosed" normal mice with copper over a three month period. The exposure consisted of trace amounts of the metal in drinking water and was one-tenth of the water quality standards for copper established by the Environmental Protection Agency.
"These are very low levels of copper, equivalent to what people would consume in a normal diet." said Deane.
The researchers found that the copper made its way into the blood system and accumulated in the vessels that feed blood to the brain, specifically in the cellular "walls" of the capillaries. These cells are a critical part of the brain's defense system and help regulate the passage of molecules to and from brain tissue. In this instance, the capillary cells prevent the copper from entering the brain. However, over time the metal can accumulate in these cells with toxic effect.
The researchers observed that the copper disrupted the function of LRP1 through a process called oxidation which, in turn, inhibited the removal of amyloid beta from the brain. They observed this phenomenon in both mouse and human brain cells.
The researchers then looked at the impact of copper exposure on mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. In these mice, the cells that form the blood brain barrier have broken down and become "leaky" – a likely combination of aging and the cumulative effect of toxic assaults – allowing elements such as copper to pass unimpeded into the brain tissue. They observed that the copper stimulated activity in neurons that increased the production of amyloid beta. The copper also interacted with amyloid beta in a manner that caused the proteins to bind together in larger complexes creating logjams of the protein that the brain's waste disposal system cannot clear.
This one-two punch, inhibiting the clearance and stimulating the production of amyloid beta, provides strong evidence that copper is a key player in Alzheimer's disease. In addition, the researchers observed that copper provoked inflammation of brain tissue which may further promote the breakdown of the blood brain barrier and the accumulation of Alzheimer's-related toxins.
However, because metal is essential to so many other functions in the body, the researchers say that these results must be interpreted with caution.
"Copper is an essential metal and it is clear that these effects are due to exposure over a long period of time," said Deane. "The key will be striking the right balance between too little and too much copper consumption. Right now we cannot say what the right level will be, but diet may ultimately play an important role in regulating this process."
Provided by University of Rochester Medical Center
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Your mother's genes can impact your own aging process, study finds
As we age, our cells change and become damaged. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging have shown that aging is determined not only by the accumulation of changes during our lifetime but also by the genes we acquire from our mothers. The results of the study are published in the journal Nature.
25 aug 2013--There are many causes of aging that are determined by an accumulation of various kinds of changes that impair the function of bodily organs. Of particular importance in aging, however, seems to be the changes that occur in the cell's power plant – the mitochondrion. This structure is located in the cell and generates most of the cell's supply of ATP which is used as a source of chemical energy.
"The mitochondria contains their own DNA, which changes more than the DNA in the nucleus, and this has a significant impact on the aging process," said Nils-Göran Larsson, Ph.D., professor at the Karolinska Institutet and principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging, and leader of the current study alongside Lars Olson, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institutet. "Many mutations in the mitochondria gradually dis-able the cell's energy production," said Larsson.
For the first time, the researchers have shown that the aging process is influenced not only by the accumulation of mitochondrial DNA damage during a person's lifetime, but also by the inherited DNA from their mothers.
"Surprisingly, we also show that our mother's mitochondrial DNA seems to influence our own aging," said Larsson. "If we inherit mDNA with mutations from our mother, we age more quickly."
Normal and damaged DNA is passed down between generations. However, the question of whether it is possible to affect the degree of mDNA damage through lifestyle intervention is yet to be investigated. All that the researchers know now is that mild DNA damage transferred from the mother contributes to the aging process.
"The study also shows that low levels of mutated mDNA can have developmental effects and cause deformities of the brain," said lead author Jaime Ross, Ph.D., at the Karolinska Institutet.
"Our findings can shed more light on the aging process and prove that the mitochondria play a key part in aging; they also show that it's important to reduce the number of mutations," said Larsson.
"These findings also suggest that therapeutic interventions that target mitochondrial function may influence the time course of aging," said Barry Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., a co-author of the study from the Department of Neurosurgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He is also a visiting professor at the Karolinska Institutet. "There are various dietary manipulations and drugs that can up-regulate mitochondrial function and/or reduce mitochondrial toxicity. An example would be antioxidants. This mouse model would be a 'platform' to test these drugs/diets," said Dr. Hoffer.
The data published in the paper come from experiments on mice. The researchers now intend to continue their work on mice, and on fruit flies, to investigate whether reducing the number of mutations can extend their lifespan.
More information: "Germline mitochondrial DNA mutations aggravate ageing and can impair brain development", Jaime M. Ross, James B. Stewart, Erik Hagström, Stefan Brene, Arnaud Mourier, Giuseppe Coppotelli, Christoph Freyer, Marie Lagouge, Barry J. Hoffer, Lars Olson & Nils-Göran Larsson, Nature, online 21 August 2013, DOI: 10.1038/nature12474
Provided by University Hospitals Case Medical Center
Friday, August 23, 2013
Brazil hires 4,000 Cuban doctors to treat poor
Brazil will import thousands of Cuban doctors to work in areas where medical services and physicians are scarce, and Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota defended the plan Thursday as a way to give "the best possible medical services for the Brazilian population."
23 aug 2013--The Health Ministry said in a statement posted on its website that it signed an agreement with the Pan-American Health Organization to hire 4,000 Cuban doctors, who are expected to arrive in Latin America's biggest country by the end of the year. The first 400 are scheduled to arrive within the next few days.
The government is bringing in Cuban doctors after failing to attract enough Brazilian and foreign physicians to its "More Doctors" program meant to send professionals to work in needy urban and rural areas for three years.
The government created the program following mass street demonstrations across Brazil in which protesters demanded better public services.
The effort has drawn the ire of Brazilian doctors, who say there are plenty of homegrown physicians to work in those areas, if only the government would invest in hospital infrastructure and provide better wages in public health care. They also sharply criticize the qualifications of the Cuban doctors.
Government officials from President Dilma Rousseff on down have repeatedly criticized Brazilian physicians seeking to block the import of foreign doctors as elitists who only want to work in cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where they can earn big incomes in pristinely equipped private hospitals. In July, the government proposed making medical students work in poor areas as part of their residencies, drawing widespread criticism from doctors as too much official meddling in training. Congress is expected to take up the measure in the coming months.
The Health Ministry said 3,500 cities and towns across Brazil are taking part in the "More Doctors" program and have requested 15,000 physicians. So far 1,300 have signed up. Of that total, 1,000 are Brazilian and 300 are either Brazilian who studied overseas or foreign doctors, mainly from Argentina, Spain and Portugal.
Foreign doctors in the program will receive a monthly salary of $4,080. In the case of the Cubans, the government will send their wages to Cuba's government through the Pan-American Health Organization. Cuba will then decide how much each doctor will receive.
Foreign doctors will have to first spend three weeks studying Brazil's public health system and the Portuguese language, the ministry said.
The Federal Medical Council, which oversees the licensing of Brazilian doctors, said in a statement that the hiring of Cuban doctors who cannot speak Portuguese and whose diplomas have not been revalidated locally violates Brazilian laws and human rights by endangering the lives of Brazilians in poor and remote regions.
Speaking to a congressional committee, Patriota defended the program, saying that "there are a lot of Cuban doctors willing to work in the interior of Brazil and many have experience working in areas like Africa."
The medical council's own statistics show that just 8 percent of Brazilian doctors work in cities of 50,000 people or less, which represent 90 percent of all the country's municipalities, illustrating the poor distribution of physicians.
Cuban medical schools graduate large classes each year, and those doctors have increasingly been a key source of revenue for the country since the medical missions program began in the early 1960s.
A Cuban Health Ministry official said last year that 38,868 Cuban medical workers, including 15,407 doctors, were working in 66 nations.
Some 30,000 Cuban health care professionals are believed to be in Venezuela alone, which provides the island with about 92,000 barrels of oil a day worth an estimated $3.2 billion a year.
Analysts say the export of medical services adds about $6 billion a year to Cuba's economy. By contrast, tourism, the official No. 1 source of incoming cash, brought in $2.5 billion in 2011, according to the most recent statistics available.
New scoring system allows clinicians to predict dementia risk in older people with type 2 diabetes
Researchers have developed a simple scoring system, based on a patient's age, health issues, and education, which accurately predicts the risk of dementia in people aged over 60 with type 2 diabetes. The research, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, will allow doctors to closely monitor those patients with diabetes at the highest risk of dementia, allowing early treatment to be given if needed.
21 aug 2013--Age, education, and six different diabetes-related health complications (acute metabolic event, microvascular disease, diabetic foot, cerebrovascular disease, heart disease, and depression) were all identified as the most important predictive factors, and the researchers incorporated them into an easy to use point scoring system.
The scores allow patients to be allocated to one of 14 categories, with the lowest score (-1) indicating the lowest risk of dementia, and the highest scores (12 – 19) indicating the highest risk. Patients with the highest score were 37 times more likely to develop dementia within ten years than those with the lowest score, and patients with higher scores also developed dementia more quickly than those with lower scores. By testing the scoring system against an unrelated group of older patients with type 2 diabetes, the researchers found that it accurately predicts patients' risk of developing dementia.
Although scoring systems to predict the risk of dementia have previously been developed for different populations, this is the first time that researchers have developed a scoring system to predict dementia specifically tailored to people with diabetes. The risk score is likely to prove especially useful to practicing clinicians, as it does not rely on expensive, complicated brain imaging or cognitive testing, although the researchers plan to incorporate a second stage into the scoring system in future including some of these aspects, which may lead to improved accuracy.
According to Dr Whitmer, "Unfortunately, there is an epidemic of both type 2 diabetes and dementia, and the link between these two illnesses portends a possible public health crisis. Our model shows that in two large populations of patients with type 2 diabetes a combination of diabetes-associated complications, education, and age is highly predictive of the likelihood of dementia within the next decade. Early detection of patients with type 2 diabetes who are at increased risk of dementia could help to develop and target preventive treatment, and our scoring system has the potential to change clinical care by giving clinicians a simple and accurate way of predicting the risk of dementia in older people with type 2 diabetes."
Writing in a linked Comment, Dr Anna-Maija Tolppanen, of the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland, states that, "Generally, risk scores might be useful in the identification of individuals who should be monitored for disease symptoms, selection of high-risk individuals for clinical trials, targeting of preventive interventions towards those at greatest risk, and assessment of the effectiveness of an intervention at reducing the risk of future illness. [The risk score developed in this paper] might be useful for clinicians for the first purpose, but clinical trial data on effective preventive interventions for dementia are currently lacking."
Physician continuity after patients leave hospital for heart failure can help survival rates
Patients with heart failure who see a physician in the first month after leaving hospital are more likely to survive than those who do not see a doctor, reports a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The effect is slightly more pronounced in patients who see their regular physician rather than an unfamiliar physician.
20 aug 2013--In the United States and Canada, more than $20 billion is spent every year on patients who are readmitted to hospital within 30 days after discharge. Heart failure is one of the most common reasons for hospitalization and has a high risk of readmission and early death.
To determine whether continuity of care resulted in better outcomes for patients with heart failure, researchers looked at data on all adults aged 20 years and over in Alberta who were discharged after hospitalization for heart failure. Patients were elderly with various health issues and had used the health care system in the year before their hospitalization for heart failure.
"Intuitively, one might consider physician continuity important for heart-failure patients discharged from hospital, given their age, high comorbidity burdens and complex therapy regimens," writes Dr. Finlay McAlister, University of Alberta, Edmonton, with coauthors. "However, a robust evidence base and multiple guidelines with consistent messaging on key management principles have made physician continuity potentially less important."
Of the total 24 373 discharged patients, 5336 (22%) did not see a physician within the first month, 16 855 (69%) saw a familiar physician (one they had seen at least twice in the year prior) and 2182 (9%) saw an unfamiliar physician. The researchers found that patients who saw a familiar physician had a lower risk of urgent readmission and death compared with patients who saw an unfamiliar physician or who did not visit a doctor.
"Early follow-up was associated with a lower risk of death or urgent readmission over 6 months, compared with no visits in the first month after discharge, regardless of whether the follow-up was with familiar or unfamiliar physicians. However, when we examined follow-up patterns throughout the 6 months after discharge, continuity with a familiar physician was associated with a significantly lower risk of death or readmission than follow-up with an unfamiliar physician, with similar effect estimates for specialist and nonspecialist follow-up," the authors write.
"The absolute reduction of 3% to 8% in risk of death or urgent readmission … observed over 3–12 months in association with follow-up in the first month after discharge was in the same range as the absolute benefits seen in placebo-controlled randomized trials of angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor or b-blocker therapy. …Thus, we believe that physicians should strive to optimize continuity with their heart-failure patients after discharge and that strategies are needed in the health care system to ensure early follow-up after discharge with the patient's regular physician," the authors conclude.
Severe hypoglycemia in diabetes tied to cardiac disease
For patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, severe hypoglycemia is associated with severe hypertension, hypokalemia, and QT prolongation, according to a study published online Aug. 12 in Diabetes Care.
For patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, severe hypoglycemia is associated with severe hypertension, hypokalemia, and QT prolongation, according to a study published online Aug. 12 in Diabetes Care.
19 aug 2013—For patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, severe hypoglycemia is associated with severe hypertension, hypokalemia, and QT prolongation, according to a study published online Aug. 12 in Diabetes Care.
Tetsuro Tsujimoto, M.D., from the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Tokyo, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study to assess vital signs, QT intervals, and newly diagnosed cardiovascular disease during severe hypoglycemia in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. A total of 414 cases of severe hypoglycemia that could not be resolved by the patients themselves in a pre-hospital setting were included in analyses.
The researchers observed no significant difference in the median blood glucose levels between patients with type 1 (88 patients) and type 2 (326 patients) diabetes. In the type 1 diabetes group, the incidences of severe hypertension, hypokalemia, and QT prolongation were 19.8, 42.4, and 50.0 percent, respectively. For patients with type 2 diabetes, the corresponding proportions were 38.8, 36.3, and 59.9 percent, with a significant difference for the incidence of severe hypertension between the groups. Only in the type 2 diabetes group were newly-diagnosed cardiovascular disease during severe hypoglycemia (1.5 percent) and death (1.8 percent) observed. There was a significant difference in the type 2 diabetes group for blood glucose levels between the deceased and surviving patients.
"Type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients with severe hypoglycemia experienced many critical problems that could lead to cardiovascular disease, fatal arrhythmia, and death," the authors write.
Six things you need to know about your vitamin D levels
Even if sunscreen is applied very thickly, vitamin D production is reduced but not stopped. Credit: Shutterstock
Vitamin D has emerged as "the vitamin of the decade", with a long and growing list of maladies supposedly caused through its absence or prevented through its bountiful supply.
But is there adequate evidence for the wonders claimed for vitamin D or are we getting a bit carried away?
Before you answer that, here are some common misconceptions about vitamin D that you should know about.
1. Everybody knows their vitamin D level should be above …?
It's a fairly universal agreement that a blood concentration of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (the usual measure of vitamin D status) below 25 nanomoles/litre (nmol/L) should be considered a serious deficiency.
Anyone who is tested and returns results like that needs to talk to their doctor about proper management. But knowing what levels are sufficient is trickier.
In 2010, the Institute of Medicine in the United States concluded that bone health is the only condition for which there's an established causal association with vitamin D. They found: health benefits beyond bone health—benefits often reported in the media—were from studies that provided often mixed and inconclusive results and could not be considered reliable.
So there's clearly contention about how much is enough. A level of 50nmol/L is sufficient to optimise the bone health of the majority of the population. But other groups recommend 75nmol/L, 100nmol/L or higher (note that US sites provide recommendations in nanograms per millilitre or ng/ml – multiply by 2.5 to convert to nmol/L).
2. There's a vitamin D deficiency epidemic in Australia.
Actually, what is most clear is that there's an epidemic of vitamin D testing in Australia – a 94-fold increase from 2000 to 2010. Costs to Medicare have gone from $1.3 million in 2000/2001 to $140.5 million in 2012/2013.
Some populations are clearly at risk of vitamin D deficiency. People who habitually cover their skin while in public for cultural or other reasons, for instance, and the immobile elderly who are rarely sun exposed. But the evidence of population-wide vitamin D deficiency is thin and unconvincing, at least in part because vitamin D tests are problematic and the desired level is hotly debated.
If an unreliable test is used and the "sufficient" bar is set too high and more people are tested, then vitamin D "deficiency" will seem more common.
3. A vitamin D test gives a simple answer and is accurate and reliable.
This is definitely not so.
If you take blood from one person and split it up into several samples and test these, you can get very different results between the samples. And it's not just a little bit different.
A recent Australian study assessing the consistency and accuracy of vitamin D tests found that between one-in-five and one-in-three participants were misclassified as "deficient". The vitamin D test results for a single blood sample returned enormously different results depending on which type of test was used and where the sample was analysed.
Four samples (out of approximately 800) differed by more than 100nmol/L (that's double the usual "sufficient" level of 50nmol/L) across two different tests, and 10% of the results differed by more than 50nmol/L. These are different measurements of the same sample!
Rather than an epidemic of deficiency, there’s currently an epidemic of vitamin D testing in Australia. Credit: Shutterstock
Fortunately work is underway to improve this abysmal situation. A group of international agencies are developing a reference measurement procedure and laboratories will be able to assess the performance of their test against this new standard.
4. Vitamin D is the elixir of life, which is sometimes presented as vitamin D deficiency will kill us all.
Given the challenges of accurately measuring levels of this vitamin and the disagreement on where the goalposts are, doing good consistent research to determine the benefits and detriments of high or low vitamin D is pretty difficult.
There's no doubt that severe vitamin D deficiency causes rickets in children, and an equivalent condition known as osteomalacia in adults. Old pictures of children with bowed legs or knock knees were often of children with rickets.
And there's pretty good evidence that supplementation with vitamin D and calcium, in combination with weight-bearing exercise, can decrease the risks of fractures in the elderly. Particularly in people who have low levels of vitamain D or calcium (or both) before starting supplementation.
But most evidence for the other reported benefits of vitamin D comes from weak studies, and there's little support from better studies.
5. Given it is such good stuff, the higher my vitamin D level, the better.
Vitamin D has traditionally been thought to be safe, requiring very high levels (greater than 400nmol/L) to reach toxicity. This toxicity cannot occur through sun exposure, but can through excessive supplementation.
But as we delve more into the vitamin D story, studies are reporting risks to health at even modestly high levels, such as 80-100nmol/L.
The evidence is not yet strong (much like the evidence of vitamin D's benefits) but this type of association is typical of many vitamins and nutrients, where both too little and too much are bad for you .
6. Sunscreen stops vitamin D production.
The majority of vitamin D your body needs comes through exposure to the sun, specifically from shorter wavelength UVB radiation that is also the main cause of skin cancers. It may seem logical that if sunscreen stops the damaging UVB reaching sensitive skin cells, it will also stop vitamin D production by those same cells.
But even if sunscreen is applied very thickly, vitamin D production is reduced but not stopped. And, of course, who puts it on that thickly?
Most of us apply sunscreen because we are going to be in the sun. We put on a thin layer that is not too icky. Under these conditions, sunscreen actually doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to vitamin D production.
There's a lot we don't know about vitamin D. But we do know that Australia has the highest skin cancer incidence in the world: hundreds of thousands of skin cancers are removed each year at a cost of more than $700 million and there are over 2,000 deaths from it.
Excessive sun exposure is the main cause of that problem. Getting the balance between vitamin D levels and sun protection right is an important health goal.
More research is needed and it should be Australian research because our circumstances are different to those in the United States and Europe. We can't just take results from there and use them here.
While a simple solution would be nice, an evidence-based one is preferable and worth pursuing. Stories about our epidemic of vitamin D deficiency drive excessive testing at high cost and unknown value. And they probably just end up selling more vitamin supplements.
But they also create confusion and diminish people's confidence and resolve to reduce excessive UV exposure.
Source: The Conversation
This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Most Americans don't want to live past 100: survey
Most Americans do not want to live beyond age 100, and a poll out Tuesday suggests many worry that anti-aging technologies may end up being a luxury for the rich.
07 aug 2013--The survey of more than 2,000 people by the Pew Research Center's Religion and Public Life Project sought to probe the nation's views on the prospect of living longer lives.
Already, aging adults account for a growing share of the US population. About 41 million Americans are 65 or older, making up 13 percent of the population, up from four percent in 1900.
By 2050, that number will rise to 20 percent, according to Census Bureau projections.
A majority of US adults (56 percent) said they would not "choose to undergo medical treatments to slow the aging process and live to be 120 or more," said the Pew report. A total of 38 percent said they would.
With the average US life expectancy at 78.7 years, more than two thirds said they would like to live longer than that, somewhere between 79 and 100.
The median, or midpoint, for ideal lifespan was 90, or about 11 years longer than the current US average.
Asked whether current medical treatments are worth the costs because they help people live longer and better quality lives, 54 percent agreed and 41 percent disagreed on grounds that modern medical advances "often create as many problems as they solve."
There was also significant concern about how life-extending technologies would be used, and by whom.
Seventy-nine percent said everyone should be able to get medical treatments that would slow, stop or reverse the aging process.
However, two-thirds said that in practice, only the wealthy would have access.
Two-thirds of respondents also said that longer life expectancies would strain natural resources, and believed that "medical scientists would offer the treatment before they fully understood how it affects people's health."
Views were split on the question of whether the economy would be more productive if people could work longer—with 44 percent agreeing and 53 percent rejecting this idea.
For certain health issues, Americans were optimistic that medical science would perform well in the future. Seven in 10 said that they expect a cure for most cancers by 2050, and 71 percent said artificial arms and legs will perform better than natural ones.
"And, on balance, the public tends to view medical advances that are available today to prolong life as good (63%) rather than as interfering with the natural cycle of life (32%)," the survey said.
By 2050, the government forecasts there will be at least 400,000 Americans aged 100 or older.
Just 10 percent said the trend toward an aging population is a bad thing.
One quarter said a major anti-aging breakthrough that would allow average folk to live to 120 and beyond was likely by 2050.
The telephone poll was conducted from March 21 to April 8 among a nationally representative sample of 2,012 adults and carried a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
Intervention assists end-of-life decisions in advanced cancer
In advanced cancer patients, an intervention with a pamphlet and discussion to assist with end-of-life decision making is associated with earlier placement of do-not-resuscitate orders and less likelihood of death in the hospital, according to research published online July 29 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
06 aug 2013—In advanced cancer patients, an intervention with a pamphlet and discussion to assist with end-of-life decision making is associated with earlier placement of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and less likelihood of death in the hospital, according to research published online July 29 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Rhea A. Stein, Ph.D., of the University of Sydney, and colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine the efficacy of a structured intervention to assist advanced cancer patients with making end-of-life decisions. Patients with metastatic cancer who were no longer receiving curative treatment were randomly assigned to intervention with an informational pamphlet and discussion (55 patients) or usual treatment (65 patients).
The researchers found comparably high rates of DNR orders in both groups. According to per-protocol analyses, patients receiving the intervention placed DNR orders earlier (median number of days before death, 27 versus 12.5 days) and were more likely to avoid death in the hospital (19 versus 50 percent) than patients receiving treatment as usual. There was no evidence that the intervention caused anxiety or depression.
"An intervention, consisting of an informational pamphlet and discussion, was associated with earlier placement of DNR orders relative to death and less likelihood of death in hospital," the authors write.
A new study, conducted by David Cutler, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, shows that, even as life expectancy has increased over the past two decades, people have become increasingly healthier later in life.
05 aug 2013--"With the exception of the year or two just before death, people are healthier than they used to be," Cutler said. "Effectively, the period of time in which we're in poor health is being compressed until just before the end of life. So where we used to see people who are very, very sick for the final six or seven years of their life, that's now far less common. People are living to older ages and we are adding healthy years, not debilitated ones."
The study results are based on data collected between 1991 and 2009 from nearly 90,000 individuals who responded to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS). Cutler reported these findings in work with Mary Beth Landrum of Harvard Medical School and Kaushik Ghosh of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
To understand whether people are becoming healthier, Cutler first had to answer a question that, at least initially, seemed impossible to solve: How far are people from death?
"There are two basic scenarios that people have proposed about the end of life," he said. "The first argues that what medical science is doing is turning us into light bulbs – that is, we work well until suddenly we die. This is also called the rectangularization of the life curve, and what it says is that we're going to have a fairly high quality of life until the very end.
"The other idea says life is a series of strokes, and medical care has simply gotten better at saving us," he continued. "So we can live longer because we've prevented death, but those years are not in very good health, and they are very expensive – we're going to be in wheelchairs, in and out of hospitals and in nursing homes."
While researchers have tried to tackle the question of which model is more accurate, different studies have produced competing results. One reason for the confusion, Cutler suggested, is that such efforts are simply looking at the wrong end of someone's life.
"Most of our surveys measure health at different ages, and then use a model to estimate how long people have to live," he said. "But the right way to do this is to measure health backwards from death, not forwards. We should start when someone dies, then go back a year and measure their health, then go back two years, three years, and so on."
The MCBS allows researchers to do just that, Cutler said, by linking survey responses to participants' Medicare records for the rest of their life, meaning researchers can calculate - in some cases to the day - exactly how far participants were from death when they answered the survey.
By comparing that data with survey responses on how well people were able to care for themselves – whether they were able to cook, clean, bathe themselves, dress themselves, walk and manage money – Cutler was able to determine how healthy people were relative to how close or far away they were from dying.
Going forward, Cutler hopes to unravel the reasons why some conditions are today less debilitating than in the past. Part of the change, he said, will certainly be chalked up to increased access and improvements to care, but there are a host of other factors that make answering the question "very very difficult."
"There seems to be a clear relationship between some conditions that are no longer as debilitating as they once were and areas of improvement in medicine," he said. "The most obvious is cardiovascular disease – there are many fewer heart attacks today than there used to be, because people are now taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, and recovery is much better from heart attacks and strokes than it used to be. A person who suffered a strokeused to be totally disabled, but now many will survive and live reasonable lives. People also rebound quite well from heart attacks."
What's more, he said, as standards of care have improved, so too has the public's knowledge of how to live healthier lives.
"People are much better educated about their health now," Cutler said. "People are taking steps to help prevent long-term cognitive decline. We don't have any way yet to slow down something like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, but there is a lot we can do for other health problems."
Provided by Harvard University
Sunday, August 04, 2013
Anemia linked to increased risk of dementia
Anemia, or low levels of red blood cells, may increase the risk of dementia, according to a study published in the July 31, 2013, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
4 aug 2013--"Anemia is common in the elderly and occurs in up to 23 percent of adults ages 65 and older," said study author Kristine Yaffe, MD, with the University of California – San Francisco and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "The condition has also been linked in studies to an increased risk of early death."
For the study, 2,552 older adults between the ages of 70-79 were tested for anemia and also underwent memory and thinking tests over 11 years. Of those, 393 had anemia at the start of the study. At the end of the study, 445, or about 18 percent of participants, developed dementia.
The research found that people who had anemia at the start of the study had a nearly 41 percent higher risk of developing dementia than those who were not anemic. The link remained after considering other factors, such as age, race, sex and education. Of the 393 people with anemia, 89 people, or 23 percent, developed dementia, compared to 366 of the 2,159 people who did not have anemia, or 17 percent.
"There are several explanations for why anemia may be linked to dementia. For example, anemia may be a marker for poor health in general, or low oxygen levels resulting from anemia may play a role in the connection. Reductions in oxygen to the brain have been shown to reduce memory and thinking abilities and may contribute to damage to neurons," said Yaffe.
Provided by American Academy of Neurology
Saturday, August 03, 2013
First global analysis reveals alarming rise in peripheral artery disease with over a quarter of a billion cases worldwid
The number of people with peripheral artery disease worldwide has risen dramatically (by 23.5 percent) in just 10 years, from about 164 million in 2000 to 202 million in 2010, according to the first robust global estimates, published in The Lancet.
3 aug 2013--The estimates suggest that the PAD burden is increasing in every region, but the majority (140.8 million; 70%) of people with PAD are now living in low-income or middle-income countries (LMIC), mainly in southeast Asia (54.8 million) and western Pacific regions (45.9 million).
"Despite its alarming prevalence and cardiovascular risk implications (people with PAD have a roughly three times higher risk of heart attack and stroke), little attention has been paid to this disease", explains lead author Professor Gerry Fowkes from the University of Edinburgh in the UK. "Our findings are a call to action."
Fowkes and colleagues identified over 100 studies that looked at the incidence or prevalence of PAD. Analysis and modelling of data from 34 community-based studies published since 1997, that identified PAD using the ankle brachial index (ABI; a simple test that measures the ratio of blood pressure at the ankle to that in the arm), were used to develop age-specific and sex-specific prevalence rates in high-income countries (HIC) and LMIC, and to establish the main risk factors for PAD.
Since 2000, the number of individuals with PAD has increased by over a quarter (28.7%) in LMIC, and by 13.1% in HIC (mainly in Europe; 40.5 million cases in 2010).
Longer life expectancy, as well as changing lifestyles, appears to be driving this dramatic rise in PAD rates, leading to a greater than 35% increase in cases older than 80 years, with PAD now affecting 1 in 10 people aged 70 years and 1 in 6 people older than 80 years worldwide.
The researchers identified higher rates of PAD among men in HIC than men in LMIC, whilst PAD may be more prevalent in women than in men in LMIC, especially at younger ages.
The analysis also confirmed that many of the key risk factors for PAD such as smoking, diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol are the same as those for other major cardiovascular disorders, and can be prevented and treated.
According to Professor Fowkes, "PAD has become a global problem in the 21st century and can no longer be regarded as a disease that affects mostly HIC. The dramatic growth in PAD is already a major public health challenge due to loss of mobility, diminished quality of life, and the significantly increased risk of heart attack and stroke. As the world's population ages, PAD will become substantially more common, and there is an urgent need to assess treatment and prevention strategies in both HIC and LMICs."
Writing in a linked Comment, Alan T. Hirsch and Sue Duval from the University of Minnesota Medical School and School of Public Health, Minneapolis, USA, point out that this study almost certainly underestimates the true PAD burden, because its estimates were derived using just one method of detecting PAD, the ABI.
According to Professor Hirsch, "Future progress in the improvement of global health will require a global strategic plan for peripheral artery disease. When any disease affects more than 200 million people, it is time to take action to prevent and control its global burden."
Male Holocaust survivors have a longer life-expectancy
Male Holocaust survivors have a longer life expectancy compared to those who didn't experience the Holocaust, according to a recent study conducted at the University of Haifa jointly with Leiden University. The results have just been published in PLOS ONE. This is the first study to examine data on the entire Jewish Polish population that immigrated to Israel before and after World War II, using the population-wide official database of the National Insurance Institute of Israel. "Holocaust survivors not only suffered grave psychosocial trauma but also famine, malnutrition, and lack of hygienic and medical facilities, leading us to believe these damaged their later health and reduced life expectancy. Surprisingly, our findings teach us of the strength and resilience of the human spirit", said the leading professor of this research, Prof. Avi Sagi-Schwartz, from the Dept. of Psychology and the Head of the Center for the Study of Child Development at Haifa University.
02 aug 2013--Previous studies showed a traumatic experience may shorten life-expectancy and even found genetic proof that trauma may lead to a shortening of the chromosome ends in the human DNA, responsible for the lifespan of human body cells. These facts led the researchers to examine whether Holocaust survivors really do have a shorter lifespan.
This research, conducted in collaboration with Prof. Shai Linn, Dean of the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences at Haifa University, Prof. Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg and Prof. Marinus H. van IJzendoorn from Leiden University in The Netherlands, was the first to be based on population-wide data derived from the official database of the National Insurance Institute of Israel, examining the entire Jewish Polish population that immigrated to Israel before and after World War II. The researchers compared between a population of Holocaust survivors who were 4-20 years old in 1939 and who immigrated to Israel between 1945-1950 and a population of Polish immigrants, of the same age group, who immigrated before the break of World War II in 1939.
In total, data on more than 55,220 men and women immigrants from Poland was examined.
The findings showed life-expectancy in the survivors' population was 6.5 months longer than that of the immigrant population that did not experience the Holocaust. But when the researchers examined the differences between men and women they found that within the entire female population of Polish immigrants, there was no significant difference in life-expectancy between female survivors and women who didn't experience the Holocaust. The differences in the male populations however were significant, with male Holocaust survivors living on average 14 months longer.
In addition, the older the surviving men were at the time of the Holocaust, the bigger the difference in life-expectancy was between them and their peers without Holocaust experience. "Men who were 10-15 years old during the war and in their early adolescence had a 10 month longer life-expectancy compared to the comparison group. Men who lived through the Holocaust when they were 16-20, had an even bigger difference in life-expectancy, 18 months longer than their peers with no Holocaust experience", said Prof. Sagi-Schwartz.
According to the researchers, one possible explanation for these findings might be the "Posttraumatic Growth" phenomenon, according to which the traumatic, life-threatening experiences Holocaust survivors had to face, which engendered high levels of psychological distress, could have also served as potential stimuli for developing personal and inter-personal skills, gaining new insights and a deeper meaning to life. All of these could have eventually contributed to the survivors' longevity. "The results of this research give us hope and teach us quite a bit about the resilience of the human spirit when faced with brutal and traumatic events", concluded Prof. Sagi-Schwartz.
