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Irish Times
04-08-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Exercise and socialising can help people at risk of dementia, large-scale study finds
A combination of healthy activities including exercise , nutritious diet, computer brain games and socialising can improve cognitive performance in people at risk for dementia , according to a large new US study. The study, conducted in five locations across the US over two years, is the biggest randomised trial to examine whether healthy behaviours protect brain health. 'It confirms that paying attention to things like physical activity and vascular risk factors and diet are all really important ways to maintain brain health,' said Dr Kristine Yaffe, an expert in cognitive ageing at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study. The results were presented laste week at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Toronto and published in the journal JAMA. READ MORE The study involved 2,111 people, aged 60 to 79, from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. None were cognitively impaired. All had sedentary lifestyles, suboptimal diets and two other dementia risk factors, such as a family history of cognitive decline and high blood pressure. [ Alzheimer's: 'I've lost my friend and my companion,' says Úna Crawford O'Brien of fellow Fair City actor Bryan Murray Opens in new window ] Half of the participants followed a structured programme. They were prescribed a healthy diet, socially engaging activities, and a weekly regimen of eight exercise sessions and three sessions of computerised cognitive training. They attended 38 meetings with facilitators and fellow participants. The study is the biggest randomised trial to examine whether healthy behaviours protect brain health. Photograph: Getty Images The other participants followed a self-guided programme. They were given educational materials and resources, and were regularly encouraged to engage in healthy behaviours. They attended six team meetings during the study. Cognitive scores for both groups improved considerably, with the high-intensity group improving somewhat more than the other group. 'The structured intervention had an extra benefit over and above the self-guided,' said Laura Baker, a professor of gerontology, geriatrics and internal medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and a principal investigator of the study. Still, the study left many questions unanswered. We should have more aggressive targeting of interventions for people who have lower cognition, who are more at risk, and less intense or less expensive interventions for those with higher cognition — Kaarin Anstey Dr Lon Schneider, an Alzheimer's expert at the University of Southern California and a member of the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, was impressed that 'both groups improved quite significantly'. But he noted that the difference in performance between the high-intensity and self-guided groups was 'very small', raising questions about how beneficial an intensive programme truly was. It was also unclear how much of the cognitive improvement reflected a 'practice effect', a common phenomenon whereby participants learn to do better on assessments simply by taking them several times, Schneider and other experts said. 'This does not demonstrate that any of the lifestyle changes in and of themselves, or the combination of them, is responsible for this level of improvement,' Schneider said. 'Or that it is necessarily related to neurodegeneration or Alzheimer's disease.' The results cannot be compared with the general population, as the study did not include a group that received no intervention. 'We didn't believe that it was ethical' to have a 'group that would not get anything', said Heather M Snyder, senior vice-president for medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer's Association, which spent $50 million as the lead funder of the study. [ Irish study to assess dementia risk from sports-related brain injury in 360 retired athletes Opens in new window ] Baker said that even if the structured intervention was only modestly more effective than the self-guided one, 'I don't think we can say a small difference for an at-risk group is not meaningful.' She estimated that, compared with the self-guided group, the structured intervention 'slowed the cognitive ageing clock by one to two years', which might 'increase resilience against cognitive decline'. But several outside experts said that estimating any real-world advantage was difficult. They also questioned whether many people could realistically adopt an intense programme. [ Dementia diagnosis 'a very lonely experience at first': advocacy group calls for counselling support Opens in new window ] 'One of the big questions is how much do you need to do, and what's cost-effective,' said Kaarin Anstey, director of the Ageing Futures Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia. 'If we only have very intensive interventions only a few people can afford, that's not actually going to address the bigger issue of population ageing and lots of people developing cognitive impairment.' The study, called US POINTER, was modelled after the first large randomised trial of lifestyle changes, called FINGER and conducted in Finland a dozen years ago. That study's intensive group showed 25 per cent greater cognitive improvement than a group receiving minimal intervention. The goal was to 'see if it can work' in a more diverse nation with different health and lifestyle issues, Baker said. The participants lived in North Carolina, Rhode Island, northern California, Houston and Chicago. More than two-thirds were women and 31 per cent were from racial or ethnic minority groups. Most had first-degree relatives with memory loss, and 30 per cent had the APOE4 gene mutation, which increases Alzheimer's risk. All of those subgroups experienced the same degree of cognitive improvement. Most people participated for the full two years, an indication that they were highly motivated whether or not they received intensive supervision. The study found that participants who started with lower cognitive scores benefited more. Photograph: Getty Images Phyllis Jones (66) of Aurora, Illinois, enrolled partly because her mother and grandmother had suffered from vascular dementia. Before the study, she said, stress from being laid off from a software engineering position and other job difficulties sent her to the emergency room with blurry vision and a racing heart. 'I was in really bad shape,' Jones said. Participating in the structured intervention 'woke me up'. At first, just 10 minutes of aerobics was exhausting, but she now exercises daily and has lost 30lb, she said. Buoyed by social support from the peer meetings, she found a new job as a software tester. She befriended another participant, Patty Kelly (81). They encouraged each other, and Kelly overhauled her own diet, sharply limiting sweets, cheese and fried food. Both women perceived some cognitive benefit, although they have not been told their scores. Jones felt more able to plan home projects and follow messaging chains at work. Kelly, who retired from a non-profit serving homeless families, said her driving had improved. 'I don't run into the side of the garage any more,' she said. The computer brain games were 'the hardest thing for us to get on board with', Jones said. That was true for other participants, too, Baker said. 'Is it practical to expect people to do this day after day?' Baker said about computerised brain training. 'Based on our experience, I'm going to say no.' But she said that any kind of intellectual stimulation could be helpful. [ Mobility issues? Here is a short workout you can do in a chair Opens in new window ] Since the trial ended last year, Jones has maintained many practices, she said, but found herself backsliding with sugar, and her cholesterol climbed. 'I think the structure is important, the accountability,' she said. The study found that participants who started with lower cognitive scores benefited more. It is unclear why, Anstey said, but could suggest that 'we should have more aggressive targeting of interventions for people who have lower cognition, who are more at risk, and less intense or less expensive interventions for those with higher cognition'. For both groups, the biggest cognitive improvement involved executive function – skills like planning and organising. Memory initially improved in both groups, but then declined, with no significant difference in the groups' ultimate memory scores. Memory loss is a core Alzheimer's symptom, Yaffe noted, so cognitive improvements in the trial were likely 'less related to Alzheimer's disease and more related to vascular changes in the brain'. The researchers will analyse blood, brain scans and other data to see if the activities spurred brain changes, reductions in Alzheimer's-related proteins or other biological factors, Snyder said. The US Alzheimer's Association will spend $40 million to follow the participants and help communities adopt locally tailored programmes. 'We now need to translate this and to turn brain health interventions into public health outcomes and solutions,' Snyder said. – This article originally appeared in The New York Times .
Forbes
26-07-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Can't Focus? Brain Experts Share Hacks To Cut Through Distractions
Maintaining your focus in a world riddled with distractions is tricky but possible. getty If you feel like your attention span is shrinking, you're not alone. And you're definitely not imagining it. Research by psychologist and professor at the University of California, Dr. Gloria Mark, found that in 2021, the average duration an adult could focus on a screen was just 47 seconds. That's down from 2.5 minutes in 2004—a nearly 69% drop in two decades. Not only that, Dr. Mark's research also found that it takes the brain about 25 minutes to refocus on the task at hand when our attention is disrupted. 'We live in an environment that is saturated with digital stimuli. This conditions our brains to expect constant novelty,' says clinical psychologist Dr. Holly Schiff. 'This novelty bias activates dopamine pathways—rewarding us for switching attention rather than maintaining it,' she explains. Excessive multitasking makes things worse, further chipping away our ability to stay focused. How To Find Your Focus The good news? It's not irreversible. Here are six expert-approved strategies to minimize distractions and reclaim your focus, starting now: Switch To Single-Tasking Our brains are not designed to perform multiple complex tasks simultaneously. Instead, we rapidly switch between tasks. And each switch requires the brain to reorient itself, which consumes mental energy and slows overall performance, Dr. Schiff explains. To improve focus, Dr. Schiff recommends practicing single-tasking instead. The idea is to commit to doing only one task at a time without any distractions. Start with short periods of single-tasking, say 20 minutes, and build up as you strengthen your focus muscles, suggests Dr. Schiff. One way to ease into the habit is using the Pomodoro technique, which encourages working in small, focused sessions followed by short breaks. 'One of my favorite ways to zip up focus immediately would have to be binaural beats,' says Dr. Therese Huston, cognitive neuroscientist and author of Sharp: 14 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life with Brain Science . Binaural beats are an auditory illusion created when two tones of slightly different frequencies are played separately into each ear at the same time. Research suggests listening to binaural beats can improve concentration by what's known as 'entraining the brain,' making distractions fade into the background, Dr. Huston explains. All you need to do is put on headphones and cue up 40 Hz binaural beats on YouTube or Spotify. Turn it down to a volume where you can hear the tones, but they don't distract you. Then get back to work on whatever needs your focus. Practice Distractibility Delay Dr. Regina Lazarovich, clinical psychologist and founder of Compass CBT, recommends the 'distractibility delay' technique to clear mental distractions and stay focused on the task at hand. You start by breaking tasks into manageable chunks. Then, when a stray thought or unrelated task pops into your head while you're working, you write it down instead of immediately acting on it and get back to what you were doing. Once the focus session is over, you can review the list and decide if you actually want to address any of those distractions. Choose Tea Over Coffee While coffee contains caffeine, tea contains both caffeine and L-theanine. A randomized controlled trial published in the Nutritional Neuroscience journal reported that this combination may help us maintain focus when switching between tasks and make us less likely to get distracted by irrelevant information. 'Single tasking is always better, but if you know it's a day when you're going to be constantly pulled out of your most important task, keep a mug of tea within reach and you'll find it easier to dive back into your main task,' says Dr. Huston. Black, green, matcha, oolong, and white teas all contain L-theanine. Pro tip: The longer you steep your tea, the more L-theanine it has. Watch Your Social Media Intake In his New York Times bestseller The Shallows, author Nicholas Carr notes that when the amount of information flowing into our working memory, aka our 'cognitive load,' exceeds what our brain can handle, it becomes nearly impossible to retain or process what we are taking in. Much like an overflowing thimble, writes Carr. Carr points out that because our ability to stay focused also depends on our working memory, 'a high cognitive load amplifies the distractedness we experience.' In other words, the distractions become more distracting. Being mindful of our social media consumption is one of the easiest ways to reduce this cognitive load. Setting a time limit, keeping your phone away during meals and bedtime, and turning off unnecessary notifications can go a long way in protecting and improving your focus. Engage In Mindfulness Practicing mindfulness for as little as five minutes a day, be it meditation, mindful walking, or intentional breathing, can increase the brain's capacity for sustained attention over time, says Dr. Michael Wetter, director of psychological services at the UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center. If you're finding it difficult to stay present during the practice, consider using guided meditations or focus points (like your breath, body sensations, or visualizations) to anchor your attention. And lastly, remember that your brain isn't built for endless focus. So, be sure to set realistic expectations and take strategic microbreaks throughout the day.
South China Morning Post
21-07-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Chinese open-source AI models occupy top spots among global developers: ranking
China is home to the world's top artificial intelligence (AI) models that are open-sourced, according to an American benchmarking platform created by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley. Kimi K2, MiniMax M1, Qwen 3 and a variant of DeepSeek R1 were ranked as the world's top open-sourced AI models, beating out offerings like Google's Gemma 3-72B and Meta's Llama 4-Maverick, LMArena said in a report on Friday. The winners were determined by 'comparing them side by side and casting votes for the better response', LMArena said on its website. The platform, previously known as Chatbot Arena, has been used by major AI companies like OpenAI and Google to assess their AI models. LMArena highlighted the progress of Kimi K2, the top model on the list, which was launched by Chinese AI start-up Moonshot AI on July 11. Moonshot said it open-sourced two versions of Kimi K2. On its X account on Friday, LMArena said Kimi K2 was 'one of the most impressive' open-source large-language models (LLMs) to date, adding that it was gaining popularity because its user responses were 'humorous without sounding too robotic'. DeepSeek R1-0528, a fine-tuned version of the model launched by Hangzhou-based start-up DeepSeek at the beginning of the year, came in second as it was 'strong in multi-turn dialogue and reasoning tasks', the platform said.
