Medical Discovery NewsBridging the World of Medical Discovery and You

Recent Episodes

hand of older Caucasian on wooden table

Dementia and Super Agers

MP3 WAV

  • While Dave and I both want to age well, we don’t know how much is out of our hands or how much damage has already been done. We’ll discuss two studies on brain health to show that you can improve it - but only up to a point.  

    The first study links our brain health to the health of our blood vessels.  The study followed nearly 8,000 people for 30 years to see how much their risk for dementia at the age of 80 was determined by diabetes, high blood pressure, and smoking. They found that 20 percent of that risk could be linked to how healthy people were in their 40s and 50s. And 40 percent of the risk came from those in their 60s and 70s.   This means 20 to 40 percent of dementia cases by the age of 80 had to do with the state of their vascular health earlier in life, which should motivate us to be more aware of our health.   

    The second study focused on the brains of people known as super-agers. Even though they’re also 80 years old, their memories resembled people 3 decades younger.  Norbert, I want to be a superager!   

    I’m not sure that’s one we get to control. Superagers have a different brain, the key being that they retain the ability to regrow neurons. For years, we had thought this wasn’t possible for adults.   

    Autopsies of superagers who donated their bodies showed that in the hippocampus, new neurons were being made, remarkably up to two and a half times more than even young adults.  We don’t know why they have this regenerative capacity, but could it help restore brain health for those with dementia? We hope so.  

More Information

Up to 44% Of Dementia Cases Preventable
Maintaining optimal vascular health throughout late life can significantly lower the risk of developing dementia before age 80 years, new research showed. Investigators estimated the proportion of new dementia cases linked to modifiable vascular risk factors.

Brains of ‘super agers’ are strong producers of new neurons
Older people with exceptional memory have a surprisingly high number of young neurons, study finds.

View all episodes >>

Two individuals wearing headphones stand in a recording booth, speaking into microphones with a music stand holding printed pages between them.

 Medicine...

Medicine is constantly advancing – that is a great thing about life in the 21st century. But it doesn’t just happen. Dedicated biomedical scientists are making discoveries that translate into those new medical advances.

Biomedical science is broad, encompassing everything from social science to microbiology, biochemistry, epidemiology, to structural biology and bioinformatics to name just a few areas. And, it can involve basic fundamental biology, the use of AI and chemistry to clinical studies that evaluate new medicines in patients.

No matter the research focus, the goal is always the same, to advance human health. It may take a few months, a few years or for fundamental science, a few decades. Few people make the connection that biomedical science is medicine and that biomedical scientists are working today on the medicine of tomorrow. Our weekly 500-word newspaper columns and 2-minute radio shows and podcasts provide insights into a broad range of biomedical science topics.

Medical Discovery News is dedicated to explaining discoveries in biomedical research and their promise for the future of medicine.

Podcasts

Buzzsprout RSS feed of Medical Discovery News

iTunes
Click to open our podcast page in iTunes, then click "Subscribe" to have new episodes delivered automatically.

Alternatively, you can copy and paste the following web address (URL) into iTunes as a new subscription:
https://www.medicaldiscoverynews.com/shows/audio/mdnews.rss

You can also search and subscribe to "Medical Discovery News" in the podcast section of iTunes.

The www.medicaldiscoverynews.com web site and Medical Discovery News radio program (Program) are made possible by The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB)as a community service and are intended to advance UTMB's mission of providing scholarly teaching, innovative scientific investigation, and state-of-the-art patient care in a learning environment to better the health of society and its commitment to the discovery of new innovative biomedical and health services knowledge leading to increasingly effective and accessible health care for the citizens of Texas.

All information provided on the web site and in the Program is for informational purposes only and is not intended for use as diagnosis or treatment of a health problem or as a substitute for consulting a licensed medical professional. Any information obtained by participating as a web site visitor or program listener is not intended to and should not be considered to constitute medical advice.

Thoughts and opinions expressed on the Program or on the website are those of the authors or guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UTMB. The provision of links to other websites is not to be construed as written or implied sponsorship or endorsement of such websites by UTMB.

Please contact Dr. David Niesel or Dr. Norbert Herzog via email with any concerns, suggestions or comments.

All rights are reserved to information provided on the website or other information sources. No part of these programs can be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transcribed in any form or by any means for personal or financial gained without the express written permission of Drs. Niesel and Dr. Herzog.

Disclaimer Notice to Website Visitors & Program Listeners