Shorter days affect the mood of millions of Americans – a nutritional neuroscientist offers tips on how to avoid the winter blues

The Conversation

Shorter days affect the mood of millions of Americans – a nutritional neuroscientist offers tips on how to avoid the winter blues

Lina Begdache, Associate Professor of Health and Wellness Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New York

December 5, 2022

For those prone to seasonal affective disorder, a shift in the sleep cycle can impact energy levels. <a href=
For those prone to seasonal affective disorder, a shift in the sleep cycle can impact energy levels. Ben Akiba/E+ via Getty Images

The annual pattern of winter depression and melancholy – better known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD – suggests a strong link between your mood and the amount of light you get during the day.

To put it simply: The less light exposure one has, the more one’s mood may decline.

Wintertime blues are common, but about 10 million Americans are affected every year by a longer lasting depression called seasonal affective disorder. Along with low mood, symptoms include anxious feelings, low self-esteem, longer sleep duration, constant craving for carbohydrates and low physical activity levels.

I am a nutritional neuroscientist, and my research focuses on the effects of diet and lifestyle factors on mood and brain functions such as mental distress, resilience and motivation.

Through my research, I have learned that seasonal affective disorder can strike anyone. However, people with a history of mood disorders are at a higher risk. In particular, young adults and women of all ages have an increased susceptibility.

Why seasonal depression happens

When daylight saving time ends each fall, the one-hour shift backward reduces the amount of light exposure most people receive in a 24-hour cycle. As the days get shorter, people can experience general moodiness or a longer-term depression that is tied to a shorter exposure to daylight.

This happens due to a misalignment between the sleep-wake cycle, eating schedules and other daily tasks. Research shows that this mismatch may be associated with poor mental health outcomes, such as anxiety and depression.

Our sleep-wake cycle is controlled by the circadian rhythm, an internal clock regulated by light and darkness. Like a regular clock, it resets nearly every 24 hours and controls metabolism, growth and hormone release.

When our brain receives signals of limited daylight, it releases the hormone melatonin to support sleep – even though we still have hours left before the typical bedtime. This can then affect how much energy we have, and when and how much we eat. It can also alter the brain’s ability to adapt to changes in environment. This process, called neuronal plasticity, involves the growth and organization of neural networks. This is crucial for brain repair, maintenance and overall function.

It is possible to readjust the circadian rhythm to better align with the new light and dark schedule. This means getting daylight exposure as soon as possible upon waking up, as well as maintaining sleep, exercise and eating routines that are more in sync with your routine prior to the time change. Eventually, people can gradually transition into the new schedule.

The intimate connection between serotonin and melatonin

Serotonin is a chemical messenger in the brain that is a key player in regulating several functions such as mood, appetite and the circadian rhythm. Serotonin also converts to melatonin with lower light intensity. As mentioned above, melatonin is a hormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle and signals the brain that it’s time to sleep.

Less daylight exposure during winter months leads to the conversion of serotonin into melatonin earlier in the evening, since it gets dark earlier. As a result, this untimely melatonin release causes a disruption in the sleep-wake cycle. For some people this can cause moodiness, daytime sleepiness and loss of appetite regulation, typically leading to unhealthy snacking. People with seasonal affective disorder often crave foods rich in simple sugars, such as sweets, because there is an intimate connection between carbohydrate consumption, appetite regulation and sleep.

Strategies to combat the winter blues

In winter, most people leave work when it’s turning dark. For this reason, light therapy is typically recommended for those who experience seasonal affective disorder, or even shorter periods of seasonal funk.

This can be as simple as getting some light shortly after awakening. Try to get at least one hour of natural light during the early morning hours, preferably about one hour after your usual morning wake-up time when the circadian clock is most sensitive to light. This is true no matter what your wake-up time is, as long as it’s morning. For people living at northern latitudes where there’s very little sun in winter, light therapy boxes – which replicate outdoor light – can be effective.

You can also improve your sleep quality by avoiding stimulants like coffee, tea or heavy meals close to bedtime. Exercising during the day is also good – it increases serotonin production and supports circadian regulation. A balanced diet of complex carbs and healthy proteins supports steady serotonin and melatonin production, and practicing downtime before bed can reduce stress.

Taking these small steps may help the circadian rhythm adjust faster. For the millions with mood disorders, that could mean happier times during what are literally the darkest days.

Lina Begdache does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Russia-Ukraine war: Putin ‘becoming more informed’ about challenges, U.S. intel chief says

Yahoo! News

Russia-Ukraine war: Putin ‘becoming more informed’ about challenges, U.S. intel chief says

Niamh Cavanaugh – Reporter – December 5, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Nov. 29. (Sergei Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russia’s war in Ukraine has now entered its 10th month, and as the weather drops below freezing, the invasion enters a new phase. According to the head of U.S. intelligence, the war is running at a “reduced tempo.” Meanwhile, a Kremlin official defended Russia’s repeated strikes against Ukraine’s crucial energy facilities, which the civilian population needs to stay warm this winter. Here are the latest developments.

Putin more ‘informed’ about military difficulties, says intelligence chief

The U.S. director of national intelligence said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has become “better informed” about the challenges the military is facing. Speaking at a defense forum, Avril Haines indicated that the Kremlin leader was no longer shielded from negative information about Russia’s standing in the war. Haines also stated that the conflict seemed to be operating at a “reduced tempo” as both sides resupply for a possible spring counteroffensive.

‘Massive missile attack’ launched in Ukraine

Ukrainian officials said Monday that Russia’s military had begun a “massive missile attack” across the country. The deputy head of the president’s office said that two buildings had been hit in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, killing two people and injuring three others, including a small child, the Ukrainian official said. Air raid sirens sounded in cities such as Kyiv, where locals were forced to take shelter in the underground subway system. Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s energy provider, said its facilities had been struck, causing blackouts amid “the eighth massive missile attack by a terrorist country.”

Explosions at Russian military bases

Russian state-linked media outlets reported Monday that two explosions had occurred at air bases in Russia. According to Astra, two aircraft were destroyed and two soldiers were injured and hospitalized after a drone attack. One of the strikes occurred at the Engels-2 air base, which is located hundreds of miles from Russia’s border with Ukraine, the New York Times reported. The other, according to RIA Novosti, happened in an airfield near Ryazan when a fuel truck exploded. Three people died, and at least six others were wounded.

Kremlin defends infrastructure strikes
The silhouette of a person sitting in a tent.
A local resident whose house has been destroyed sits in a tent for warmth in Borodyanka, near Kyiv, on Sunday. (Dimitar Dilkov/AFP via Getty Images)

Sergey Lavrov, the Kremlin’s foreign minister, defended Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, stating that they were legitimate targets. “This infrastructure supports the combat capability of the Ukrainian armed forces and nationalist battalions,” Lavrov said Thursday during a video call with reporters. Removing the energy facilities, he said, would in turn minimize the number of Russian casualties, as these infrastructures “allow you to keep pumping deadly weapons into Ukraine.”

Macron talks peace negotiations
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at a news conference with President Biden.
French President Emmanuel Macron at a news conference with President Biden at the White House on Dec. 1. (Susan Walsh/AP)

During a state visit to the U.S., French President Emmanuel Macron said that the West should consider Russia’s need for security guarantees if peace talks are to take place again. Speaking in an interview with French media on Saturday, Macron stated that Europe should prepare a “dialogue” for both Russian officials and Ukrainian officials to “return to the table.”

“One of the essential points we must address, as President Putin has always said, is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron said. He added that preparation must be done so that Europe knows “what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states.”

Russia lost 60 aircraft likely from Ukrainian ‘air defense’
The wreckage of a Russian aircraft shot down in a field.
The wreckage of a Russian aircraft in a field near the town of Izium, Kharkiv region, on Sept. 30. (Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters)

The U.K.’s Ministry of Defense revealed on Monday that Russia has lost over 60 fixed-wing aircraft so far in the invasion. At the start of the war, Russia was operating as many as 300 missions per day but is now “conducting significantly” fewer missions per day. “The decrease in sorties is likely a result of continued high threat from Ukrainian air defenses, limitations on the flying hours available to Russian aircraft, and worsening weather,” the Defense Ministry tweeted. “With Russia’s ground attack tactics largely reliant on visual identification and unguided munitions, the Russian air force will likely continue a low rate of ground attack operations through the poor winter weather.”

Trump Had Hidden $19.8 Million Loan From North Korea-Linked Company As President: Report

HuffPost

Trump Had Hidden $19.8 Million Loan From North Korea-Linked Company As President: Report

Mary Papenfuss – December 5, 2022

Donald Trump failed to disclose a $19.8 million loan from a company with ties to North Korea while he was president, Forbes reported Sunday, citing documents uncovered by the New York attorney general’s office.

Trump owed the money to L/P Daewoo while he was campaigning in 2016 and into his presidency, according to records. He didn’t list the debt in financial disclosure filings, as candidates and presidents are expected to do, Forbes reported.

The loan was paid off just over five months into his presidency. Forbes said the documents don’t specify who satisfied it.

Daewoo is a South Korean conglomerate that partnered with Trump on a development project near the United Nations headquarters in New York City and on several other projects over the years. The company has ties to North Korea, Forbes reported, and was the only South Korean company allowed to operate a business in North Korea in the mid-1990s.

Trump may have skirted disclosure laws and not committed an outright violation because the loan was on the books of his company, the Trump Organization, and not identified as a personal loan, Forbes noted.

The debt would have sparked conflict of interest concerns over an American president’s indebtedness to a foreign operation vulnerable to influence by North Korea’s rogue government. Trump often gushed about his close relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Such loans are largely reported on an honor system because the U.S. Office of Government Ethics has neither the resources nor the power to delve into a president’s assets.

“If someone does not disclose a loan, OGE has no way to know,” said Walter Shaub, who ran that agency when Trump took office.

Don Fox, who once also headed the office, told Forbes:“The system is kind of predicated upon people actually following a law because they want to follow the law.”

Check out the Forbes article here.

Related…

Anavex’s (AVXL) Lead Alzheimer’s Drug Meets Study Goal

Zacks

Anavex’s (AVXL) Lead Alzheimer’s Drug Meets Study Goal

Zacks Equity Research – December 5, 2022

Shares of Anavex Life Sciences AVXL were up 35.9% on Dec 2 after management reported positive topline data from a phase IIb/III study which evaluated its lead pipeline candidate ANAVEX 2-73 (blarcamesine) in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) indication.

The phase IIb/III study, or the ANANVEX 2-73-AD-004 study, evaluated ANAVEX 2-73 for the treatment of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) due to AD and mild AD (collectively known as early AD)

The ANAVEX 2-73-AD-004 study achieved its primary and key secondary endpoints. Treatment with ANAVEX 2-73 showed robust, statistically significant and clinically meaningful absolute improvement in cognitive functions as measured by ADAS-Cog and ADCS-ADL that were the study’s primary endpoints over a 48-week treatment period in the analysis of the intent-to-treat (ITT) population.

Data from the study showed that study participants who received ANAVEX 2-73 were 84% more likely to have improved cognition than those who were administered placebo. Patients treated with ANAVEX 2-73 were 167% more likely to improve function than those participants who were receiving a placebo. The treatment also showed a statistically significant reduction in cognitive decline at the end of treatment by 45%, when compared with placebo.

The study also met its secondary endpoint of reduction in clinical decline of cognition and function, as measured by CDR-SB score. Data from the study showed a 27% reduction in the ITT population when compared to placebo-administered participants.

The ANAVEX 2-73-AD-004 study randomized AD participants into three equal groups – one group which received a mid-dose of ANAVEX 2-73, a second group, which received a high-dose of the drug and a third group which received placebo.

Anavex continues to conduct a further analysis the above data and intends to submit the same for publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Management is also conducting an open-label extension study ATTENTION-AD to follow study participants over a 96-week treatment period.

Shares of Anavex have declined 30.5% this year compared with the industry’s 16.7% fall.

Zacks Investment Research
Zacks Investment Research


Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The results of the ANAVEX 2-73-AD-004 study are also consistent with the phase IIa ANAVEX 2-73 study previously conducted by the company. Data from the phase IIa study had demonstrated a therapeutic effect on cognition and function.

Per management, AD is one of the leading causes of deaths in older adults aged above 65 years and is also the most common cause of dementia in this age group. Treatment with ANAVEX 2-73 demonstrated a reversal of cognitive decline.

Apart from AD, Anavex has also successfully completed clinical studies evaluating ANAVEX 2-73 in other indications. These include a phase II proof-of-concept study on Parkinson’s disease dementia and a phase III study in adult patients with Rett syndrome.

Anaex’s target market is highly competitive as several other pharma companies like Biogen BIIB and Eli Lilly LLY are also developing their candidates targeting the AD indication. The Alzheimer’s candidates of these companies — anti-amyloid beta antibodies — are in late-stage development or review and are expected to be launched in a few months.

Last week, Biogen along with partner Eisai presented detailed data from the phase III confirmatory study CLARITY AD, which evaluated its AD candidate lecanemab (BAN2401) to treat early AD. The data showed that Biogen’s candidate did reduce markers of amyloid in early Alzheimer’s disease and led to moderately less decline in measures of cognition and function than placebo at 18 months. However, treatment with lecanemab was associated with adverse events.

Biogen/Eisai have already filed their biologics license application (BLA) seeking accelerated approval for lecanemab with the FDA, supported by data from a phase II study (Study 201). A final BLA decision is expected by Jan 6, 2023.

Eli Lilly has developed donanemab, an investigational antibody therapy, for AD. Eli Lilly initiated a rolling submission with the FDA last year, seeking approval for donanemab under the accelerated pathway based on data from the phase II TRAILBLAZER-ALZ study. A final decision on the BLA is expected in early 2023. Eli Lilly also expects a data readout from the pivotal phase III TRAILBLAZER-ALZ 2 by mid-2023. If positive, the data will form the basis of its application for traditional regulatory approval for donanemab.

Last month, Roche RHHBY announced the failure of the GRADUATE I and II studies, evaluating its monoclonal antibody gantenerumab in early AD. The studies failed to meet their primary endpoint of slowing clinical decline. Patients treated with Roche’s gantenerumab showed a slowdown of clinical decline in GRADUATE I and GRADUATE II, which was not statistically significant. Per Roche, the level of beta-amyloid removal was lower than expected.

Anavex Life Sciences Corp. Price

Anavex Life Sciences Corp. Price
Anavex Life Sciences Corp. Price

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Corporate landlords are gobbling up mobile home parks and rapidly driving up rents

MoneyWise

Corporate landlords are gobbling up mobile home parks and rapidly driving up rents — here’s why the space is so attractive to them

Vishesh Raisinghani – December 5, 2022

Corporate landlords are gobbling up mobile home parks and rapidly driving up rents — here’s why the space is so attractive to them
Corporate landlords are gobbling up mobile home parks and rapidly driving up rents — here’s why the space is so attractive to them

The hunt for yield has pushed private equity firms and professional investors into new segments of the real estate market.

In recent years, sophisticated investors have snapped up multi-family units and single-family homes. Now, corporate landlords are targeting the most cost-effective segment of the real estate market: mobile home parks

The most affordable U.S. housing option

Manufactured homes or mobile homes are considered the most affordable non-subsidized housing option in America. That’s because the owners own only the prefabricated unit and not the land under the home. The land is usually leased from the landlord of a trailer park.

The average monthly rent for a mobile home in 2021 was $593. That’s significantly lower than the average one-bedroom condo rental rate of $1,450. The mobile park rental also often includes utilities and insurance.

Rents typically rise 4% to 6% annually and renters have the flexibility to move their housing unit to another park. These factors make the manufactured home highly attractive to low-income households.

As of 2020, nearly 22 million Americans lived in mobile homes. That’s 6.7% of the total population or about one in 15 people across the country. However, the economic inefficiencies that make these manufactured homes affordable also make them attractive to professional investors.

Investing in mobile home parks

Factors such as below-market rents and disrepair make mobile home parks attractive for investors seeking to add value. The typical mobile home park lot costs $10,000, which means 80 lots would be worth $800,000 on average.

Put simply, the entry price for these parks is much lower than multi-family apartments and condo buildings across the country.

Professional investors can also raise rents significantly to improve the valuation of the property. Attracting tenants with higher incomes or improving the park’s amenities and infrastructure are other value-add strategies that make this asset class appealing.

The fact that moving a typical mobile home costs between $3,000 to $10,000 also means that most tenants are unable to afford the move. This gives landlords immense pricing power.

Meanwhile, the yield is much higher. The capitalization rate (the ratio of net operating income to market price) could be as high as 9%, according to real estate partners Dave Reynolds and Frank Rolfe, who together are the fifth-largest owner of mobile home parks in the U.S.

The largest mobile park landlord is real estate veteran Sam Zell. Zell’s Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) owns 165,000 units across the country and the asset is a key element of his $5.4 billion fortune.

In recent years, larger investors such as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and private equity firms such as The Carlyle Group, Brookfield, Blackstone, and Apollo have also added exposure to this asset class.

Even Warren Buffett is involved. His firm’s subsidiary, Clayton Homes, is the largest manufacturer of mobile homes in the U.S., and also operates two of the biggest mobile home lenders, 21st Mortgage Corp. and Vanderbilt Mortgage.

You can invest too

Retail investors looking for exposure to mobile home parks have plenty of options. Acquiring a park is, perhaps, the most straightforward way to access this asset class. However, publicly-listed stocks and real estate investment trusts offer exposure too.

Sam Zell’s Equity LifeStyle Properties is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ELS. Sun Communities Inc. (SUI) owns 146,000 units across the U.S. and some in Canada, while Legacy Housing Corp. (LEGH) builds, sells, and finances manufactured homes.

Retail and institutional investors could see more upside from this segment as the economic inefficiencies are ironed out.

How I’m Staying in Shape by Turning My Daily Stroll Into Hard Exercise

Barron’s

How I’m Staying in Shape by Turning My Daily Stroll Into Hard Exercise

Neal Templin – Dec. 3, 2022

Sure, walking is good for you. But a few changes to your routine could turn it into a heart-thumping exercise.Dreamstime


If I read one more time that walking is the best exercise, I’m going to take a few steps and scream.

This article is about how to make walking a better exercise.

True, walking is the most practicable exercise. You can pretty much do it anywhere anytime. That is no small thing.

The problem is that ordinary walking won’t push your heartbeat rate into the same zone as running or a fast bicycle ride or even a game of pickleball, one study found.

Why does intensity matter? Vigorous workouts are a more efficient way of getting fit, says cardiologist Matthew Nayor, an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, who tested the fitness of more than 3,000 participants in the Framingham Heart Study. He found that a minute of moderate to vigorous exercise had the same benefit as two or three minutes of light exercise.

How do you know if the exercise is vigorous enough? If you can carry on a conversation easily, it is probably moderate exercise, Nayor says. “If the sentences get shorter, and it is harder to carry on a conversation, you’re headed toward vigorous exercise.”

There are simple tricks you can use to transform leisurely walks into intense exercise. That includes walking up hills, carrying a weighted backpack, or working a few sprints into your daily perambulation. Perhaps the best trick of all is to walk really fast.

I have done all these things since Aug. 14, the day I turned my bicycle too sharply onto a gravel road near my New Jersey home and was slammed down, breaking two bones in my right wrist and partially tearing a tendon. That hurt.

At the time, I was training roughly 12 hours a week in preparation for an October bike ride across Italy with high school friends.

I saw a hand surgeon the next day and he told me I probably wouldn’t need surgery but that I could forget about biking in Italy. He put my wrist in a splint and said I couldn’t drive a car, much less get on a bike for a good while.

That hurt even more. Not only was I forgoing the trip to Italy, but I had spent months getting in the best shape in years. Now I was going to lose it all.

I started walking the next day to avoid that fate. Am I in biking shape? No way. But I have kept relatively fit by going on a hard daily walk. I passed a previously scheduled heart stress test a couple of weeks after my bike crash, and my resting pulse rate—one way to measure how healthy your heart is-is about the same as when I was riding 12 hours a week.

Like any exercise regime, you should talk to your doctor before doing intense walking. This is particularly true if you’re older.

Here are the tactics I used to step up my daily walking routine. Anybody with a pair of walking shoes can use these.

Sprint Once in Awhile

Short bursts of intense workout woven into your daily walk will greatly improve its cardiovascular benefits.

“High-intensity interval training is basically doing an activity ‘as hard as you can’ for about 30 seconds, whether it be walking, running, cycling, swimming, then taking one to two minutes of recovery at a more easy pace,” explains Edward Laskowski, a doctor of sports medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Walking in a hilly area is a natural sort of interval training. When you walk up the hill, that is the high intensity part. When you walk down, that is the recovery.

If you live in a flat area, try doing a few short sprints during your walk. Take your time to recover after each sprint. I prefer sprinting on grass, which I do at a local park.

Carry Weights

A weighted rucksack or vest can turn your stroll into a taxing workout. When I don’t feel like walking fast, I put on a 30-pound backpack and walk through a nearby forest with some hills. I’m exhausted by the time I get back to my house.

You can buy rucksacks with secured weight plates so things won’t bounce around. I’m a cheapskate, so I just took a weight set we had sitting around and used duct tape and cardboard to construct a stable weight that I could secure inside a backpack.

Pick Up Your Pace

This is the most tiring workout of all.

If you want to walk faster than 4 or perhaps 4.5 miles an hour, a brisk pace for most walkers, you have to bend your arms and swing them like a racewalker. Here’s a demonstration. The more you swing your arms like this, the faster you’ll step. Trained race walkers can walk at 9 or 10 miles an hour. You read that right. Here’s a video of Tom Bosworth of England walking a mile in 5 minutes and 31 seconds. It’s difficult to run a mile that fast.

The fastest I’ve managed recently isn’t quite 5 miles an hour—less than half the pace of Bosworth!—and a 4 mile walk at that pace left me completely thrashed. It was absolutely as hard as a run or a hard bike ride. My legs were almost quivering by the end because—I can’t believe I’m writing this—walking can be the best exercise if done right.

How Far Should You Walk to Improve Your Health? You Won’t Like the Answer.

Barron’s

How Far Should You Walk to Improve Your Health? You Won’t Like the Answer.

Neal Templin – Dec. 3, 2022

Yes, it really takes that many steps to stay in shape.Dreamstime.com

Walking 10,000 steps a day is one of those mysteriously decided good things we should all do, much like drinking eight glasses of water a day. I read it comes from a Japanese marketing campaign in the 1960s.

I’d like to report the number of steps needed for full benefit was fewer, but a fair amount of research has since been done on the subject, and it found that walking 10,000 steps a day is great for your health.

Evan Brittain, a cardiologist and associate professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Tennessee, co-wrote an October 2022 study published in Nature Medicine journal that measured how much exercise people actually got using Fitbit fitness trackers during a median of four years.

The study looked for associations between step count and disease. “We looked across every human disease that showed up in unbiased analysis,” Brittain says. “We homed in on six strongly: obesity, hypertension, diabetes, esophageal reflux, sleep apnea and depression.”

The study found the biggest protections against most diseases among those who walked close to 10,000 steps a day. For example, the research found that increasing your step count to 10,000 from 6,000 reduces the incidence of diabetes by 56%.

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Why is walking—or any form of exercise, reallyso good for us? A few reasons, says cardiologist Chad Raymond, director of cardiac rehabilitation at University Hospitals Harrington Heart and Vascular Institute in Ohio. For starters, those same endorphins that make you feel great after exercising also open up your blood vessels and help create new blood vessels.

“Regular exercise reduces blood pressure five to eight points, often what most blood pressure medicines do,” he says.

Exercise also improves the ability of skeletal muscles ability to extract oxygen from the blood, Raymond adds. And it helps improve lung function, which in turn helps the heart. 

Stop the presses: Being a couch potato isn’t good for you. So put on those comfortable shoes and go for a walk. 

Finnish leader says the brutal truth is Ukraine shows Europe isn’t ‘strong enough’ without the US

Business Insider

Finnish leader says the brutal truth is Ukraine shows Europe isn’t ‘strong enough’ without the US

John Haltiwanger – December 2, 2022

Sanna Marin meets with Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine.Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP
  • Finland’s prime minister said Ukraine showed Europe was too reliant on the US for security.
  • “I must be brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough right now,” Sanna Marin said.
  • “We would be in trouble without the United States,” she added.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Friday the Ukraine war showed Europe was too reliant on the US for its security.

“I must be brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough right now,” Marin said in remarks at a think tank in Sydney, according to Reuters. “We would be in trouble without the United States.”

She added: “The United States has given a lot of weapons, a lot of financial aid, a lot of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and Europe isn’t strong enough yet.

“We have to make sure that we are building those capabilities when it comes to European defense.”

The US has provided Ukraine with far more security assistance than any other country — roughly $19.1 billion since Russia launched its invasion in late February.

Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine marks the first major conflict in Europe since World War II, and it has prompted more urgent discussions on European security and the continent’s reliance on the US. It also pushed Finland and Sweden — two countries that have historically been neutral or militarily nonaligned — to join NATO (the process for their accession is ongoing).

In a speech last month to European diplomats, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, questioned how the US would’ve handled the Ukraine war if former President Donald Trump were in office instead of President Joe Biden.

Trump was often critical of US security commitments in Europe and frequently chastised NATO allies over their lower levels of defense spending compared with the US. His first impeachment was also related to his dealings with Ukraine, including freezing aid to Kyiv, its capital, as he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into Hunter Biden, the president’s son, over allegations of corruption.

Along these lines, Borrell said Europe needed to take more steps to ensure it’s not so reliant on Washington.

“What would have happened if, instead of Biden, it would have been Trump or someone like him in the White House? What would have been the answer of the United States to the war in Ukraine? What would have been our answer in a different situation?” Borrell said, adding: “These are some questions that we have to ask ourselves. And the answer for me is clear:

“We need to shoulder more responsibilities ourselves. We have to take a bigger part of our responsibility in securing security.”

Tiny Blood Clots May Be to Blame for Long COVID Symptoms, Some Researchers Say

Time

Tiny Blood Clots May Be to Blame for Long COVID Symptoms, Some Researchers Say

Jamie Ducharme – December 2, 2022

Blood samples in a laboratory
Blood samples in a laboratory

Credit – Getty Images

Blood clotting is a normal, healthy process. It’s what stops the bleeding when you slice your finger in the kitchen, for example. But sometimes, clotting goes awry. Clots that block major blood vessels can lead to potentially fatal issues like strokes or heart attacks. Tiny clots in the body’s small blood vessels can also be dangerous.

Autopsies of people who died from COVID-19 have shown that some patients develop these tiny “microclots” in their lungs, potentially contributing to respiratory failure. And now, a growing group of researchers believe microclots may also be to blame, at least in part, for Long COVID symptoms.-

People with Long COVID can experience a range of health issues—everything from neurological issues to intense fatigue and gastrointestinal distress—for months, or even years, after catching COVID-19. Researchers aren’t entirely sure why this happens. Some argue it’s because remnants of the virus linger in the body, while others think the virus triggers an abnormal immune response that essentially causes the body to attack itself.

Yet another camp of researchers believes that microclots cause Long COVID symptoms by impeding blood and oxygen flow to the body’s organs and tissues. That hypothesis is alluring because it suggests an intuitive treatment approach: if you can flush clots from the blood, you should be able to get rid of symptoms.

Resia Pretorius, head of the physiological sciences department at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, is one of the leaders of that camp. In August 2021, she co-authored the first paper to raise the microclot theory. Still, Pretorius isn’t ruling out other explanations—or a combination of them. In fact, she believes the leading hypotheses about Long COVID’s causes are interconnected. She posits that lingering viral remnants may damage the cells that line the blood vessels, prompting the formation of inflammation and microclots, which could in turn make the immune system attack itself. “It’s connected,” she says. “It can be seen as interacting with each other, not one [theory] above the other.”

David Putrino, a Long COVID researcher at New York’s Mount Sinai health system who has collaborated with Pretorius, agrees that microclots are likely a piece of the larger Long COVID puzzle. “Microclots are kind of like exhaust fumes,” he says. “They’re showing up because something systemically is going wrong.” Putrino’s research with Yale University’s Akiko Iwasaki (who has also collaborated with Pretorius) suggests Long COVID patients have high levels of systemic inflammation, which he says could lead to the formation of microclots.

“If we can modulate any part of that cascade with therapeutics,” Putrino says, “people are [hopefully] going to start to feel better.”

There is no proven cure for Long COVID. But in December 2021, Pretorius’ research group posted online a study (which has not yet been peer reviewed) showing that 24 Long COVID patients experienced improvements in symptoms, including fatigue, after being treated with blood-thinning drugs.

But some experts have doubts about that approach. Dr. Adam Cuker, clinical director of Penn Medicine’s Blood Disorders Center and a member of the American Society of Hematology, says so much remains unknown about microclots that it feels premature to begin treating people with drugs that come with significant risks, such as excessive bleeding.

“The scientific part of me would say, ‘It would be better if we had more evidence from basic science labs before we turn this into a clinical trial,’” Cuker says. “The tension is that I recognize that there are patients suffering out there and desperate for answers.”

At the moment, Cuker says some of the studies on microclots are “hypothesis-generating,” but he has doubts about some of the ways that researchers are looking for microclots in the blood. For example, the protocol developed by Pretorius’ team involves drawing blood and adding a fluorescent agent. Researchers then compare the sample’s appearance under a microscope with fluorescent-treated samples from healthy control patients. “That’s a very artificial system,” Cuker says. “It’s very different from an autopsy, where you can see with your own eyes that there were clots in the body.”

To help standardize the research process, Putrino’s team is developing an objective way to detect the presence of microclots using a computer vision algorithm. From there, he says, the next step is to determine whether the amount of microclots in a person’s body correlates with their symptom severity. His lab has already gathered some unpublished data that suggest extensive clotting is linked to increased cognitive impairment—another finding, albeit a premature one, that suggests microclots are at least partially responsible for Long COVID symptoms.

Putrino acknowledges that there’s a long way to go when it comes to microclot research, and research on Long COVID in general. But he says it’s necessary to think outside the box, “especially when people’s lives are at stake.”

Neurologists say accelerated brain aging in Black people can be countered by lifestyle changes

NBC News

Neurologists say accelerated brain aging in Black people can be countered by lifestyle changes

Curtis Bunn – December 2, 2022

Black physicians are fascinated but not surprised by recent data that suggests Black people’s brains are likely to age faster than those of other races due to stressors such as racism. However, doctors said lifestyle changes and preventative care could help slow some of the decline.

In a study published last month in the journal JAMA Neurology, researchers from Columbia University found racial and ethnic disparities in brain markers of Alzheimer’s disease and related cases of dementia. The scientists analyzed MRI scans of nearly 1,500 participants, and found that Black adults in their mid-50s were more likely than white or Hispanic adults of the same age group to show white-matter lesions in their brains, which are indicators of cerebrovascular disease or cognitive decline.

The authors noted that “social forces” may have played a part in the accelerated brain aging seen among their Black subjects. In particular, the study says the weathering hypothesis — which states that “chronic exposure to social and economic disadvantage leads to accelerated decline in physical health outcomes”— could cause Black middle-aged adults on average to have cerebrovascular disease earlier in life.

JAMA Neurology did not immediately respond to request for interview.

Dr. Philippe Douyon. (Courtesy of Dr. Bouyon)
Dr. Philippe Douyon. (Courtesy of Dr. Bouyon)

Dr. Philippe Douyon, a neurologist in New Jersey at the Inle Brain Fit Institute who hosts The Brain Prophets Podcast, said he’s concerned that some may interpret the study to mean that Black people are naturally predisposed to Alzheimer’s. “That’s not the case at all. A lot of things contribute to dementia and Alzheimer’s, like high blood pressure and diabetes. Also, chronic stress kills neurons or brain cells in the part of the brain responsible for making new memories,” Douyon said.

He also noted that chronic stress as a result “of racism or health inequalities due to racism” can raise someone’s risk of developing cognitive disease. “But I would not want people to think that it has anything to do with the fact that the color of their skin is black,” he said.

Dr. Richard D. King, a neurologist and associate professor at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, said many people who experience a deterioration in brain function do not realize there’s a problem until there’s been “quite a bit of decline.”

He added that stress can exacerbate hypertension, which can make a person more prone to cognitive decline.

Dr. Richard D. King. (Pete Comparoni)
Dr. Richard D. King. (Pete Comparoni)

“Elevated blood pressure is a very strong risk factor for worsening cerebrovascular disease,” King said. “But two people might respond to the exact same stress in very different ways. It’s a difficult thing to measure on an individual basis.”

Donald Grant, a psychologist and the executive director of Mindful Training Solutions, a firm that designs diversity, equity and inclusion programs for businesses, said the stress of being Black in America can wear on the brain.

“We’re talking about Black folks experiencing these higher degrees of racialized stress, meaning we’re watching ourselves being murdered through racism, we’re watching ourselves not get jobs because of racism,” Grant said. “We’re watching ourselves not get housing and equal opportunities through racism. That creates a unique stress that nobody else experiences and our brains are being impacted by it.”

Minimizing the risk 

Douyon said there are many ways to slow brain aging, including maintaining a healthy diet and getting proper rest.

“You can minimize your risk of dementia by eating healthy — more fruits and grains and vegetables and less animal fats and sweets in moderation,” he said. “You need to make sure you’re getting six to eight hours of sleep every night.”

Douyon said sleep deprivation in someone’s mid-life years — 20s through 50s — can raise the risk of  dementia in their 60s, 70s or 80s. He said it’s important to not only get sleep, but deep sleep, known as non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.

“That’s when the brain essentially clears out the toxins that are developing throughout the day. And when these toxins build up, they develop into plaques and those are the kind of plaques that we see in people with Alzheimer’s,” he said.

King added that it’s also important to keep the mind and body active.

“Exercise is a big one,” he said, “and that’s something that we’re actually pretty good at least until we get older, when we get kind of lazy. But physical activity is my best anti-aging formula.” He recommends spending 30 minutes per day doing “something that’s kind of vigorous and gets your heart rate up — gets you a little sweaty.”

King and Douyon also suggested playing board games, solving puzzles and reading as ways to exercise the brain.

“Learning a new hobby makes a big difference,” King said. “And then staying socially active. Keeping those connections with family with friends, with church and social organizations provide meaningful interaction. If you get isolated, you just don’t do as well as those that maintain those connections.”

In addition, Grant thinks it’s equally important to find ways to manage stress.

One option is through activities like restorative yoga, which Grant said can help address stress and regulate blood pressure and brain function.

Dr. Donald Grant. (Courtesy of Dr. Grant.)
Dr. Donald Grant. (Courtesy of Dr. Grant.)

“Racism creates a unique stress that nobody else experiences,” he said. “We have to begin building stress relief techniques in school that specifically speak to race-based stress and trauma. This type of yoga is one of them.”

King noted that “the study certainly suggests that if we were able to do things like close the socioeconomic gaps and provide more opportunities and reduce the number of microaggressions Black people face, you might see some change in that.”

He added that high blood pressure and diabetes, which are prevalent in Black communities, can be managed with proper health care and while both are very common, they are “very treatable.”

“What gets measured, gets managed,” King said. “And so you have to measure it. You have to go to your primary care doctor and check your blood pressure and blood sugar level. And you have to take your medications on a regular basis.”

Douyon said a holistic approach is likely the best way to slow down brain aging.

“You want to constantly be learning, constantly evolving, learning new skills, interacting with different people, learning new languages, traveling the world, having new experiences,” he said. “Being creatures of habit is killing our neurological potential. So, you don’t want to be sedentary — that causes the brain to atrophy and to shrink. These are things that we can do every day to minimize the risk of us developing something like Alzheimer’s.”