Latest news with #mentaldecline


National Post
2 hours ago
- Health
- National Post
Three factors will stall dementia and the aging process, according to new U.S. study
By 2050, over 1.7 million Canadians are projected to be living with dementia. This represents an increase of 187 per cent compared to 2020, when approximately 597,300 Canadians were living with dementia, according to the Alzheimer's Society of Canada. Article content Dementia describes the decline of mental ability, while Alzheimer's Disease is the medical term for the brain disease that commonly causes dementia. Article content Article content Researchers are now saying certain lifestyle changes can stave off mental decline. A new U.S. study sets out what Alzheimer's researchers are calling the strongest evidence yet regarding what is involved in slowing the aging process and improving cognition. Article content Article content It comes down to three key factors: a diet heavy on leafy greens, berries and grains, regular moderate exercise and ongoing social interaction. Regular cardiovascular monitoring is also a factor. Article content Jessica Langbaum, senior director of research strategy at the Banner Alzheimer's Institute in Phoenix was not involved directly in the research but she presented the findings at an annual conference of experts in Toronto on Wednesday. The Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) is the largest international meeting dedicated to advancing dementia science and clinical practice. This year's gathering brought together 8,000 scientists and clinicians from all over the world, with the goal of improving diagnosis, risk reduction and treatment. Article content Article content The study pulled together diet, exercise and socialization in one substantial, structured study of 2,100 people in their 60s and 70s at risk of developing dementia, showing that bad habits 'can really slow down memory and thinking' in adults at risk for cognitive impairment and dementia, Langbaum told the PBS New Hour in an interview on Wednesday evening. Article content The subjects who participated in the study changed their habits, shifting from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one and improving their diet over a two-year period, resulting in cognitive function scores on par with people one or two years younger. Article content That might not sound like much, but Langbaum says the results are significant evidence that change can occur without medication. 'And so, it's showing that we can change the trajectory of aging,' she said. Article content There were two groups in the study. In one, lifestyle changes were structurally prescribed. In the other, the changes were self-directed. The results for the prescribed group were much better, but Langbaum says both groups showed improvement.


Fox News
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Biden White House staff will be 'key' in House investigation, Jason Chaffetz says
Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz joins 'The Faulkner Focus' to discuss House Republicans' efforts to investigate the alleged cover-up of former President Biden's mental decline.


Fox News
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Piers Morgan on Biden decline: 'Not about age, it's about competency'
'Piers Morgan Uncensored' host Piers Morgan discusses testimony from former Biden staffers on the president's mental decline while in office and the emotional funeral procession for Ozzy Osbourne.


Fox News
a day ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Biden 'Politburo' member Steve Ricchetti to appear before House investigators in Comer cover-up probe
Longtime Democratic operative Steve Ricchetti is appearing before House investigators on Wednesday, the seventh former White House aide to be summoned for Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer's probe. Ricchetti most recently served as counselor to President Joe Biden during the vast majority of the Biden White House's four-year term. He's now expected to sit down with House Oversight Committee staff for a closed-door transcribed interview that could last several hours. Comer, R-Ky., is investigating whether Biden's top White House aides concealed signs of mental decline in the president, and if that meant executive actions were signed via autopen without his knowledge. Ricchetti first began working for Biden in 2012, when he was appointed as counselor to the vice president during the Obama administration. He was soon promoted to Biden's chief of staff in late 2013. Ricchetti, who made a living as both a lobbyist and a Democratic insider, chaired Biden's 2020 presidential campaign as well. The committee's interest in him, however, lies in his alleged key role in managing the White House while aides reportedly worked to obscure signs of the president's mental decline. "As Counselor to former President Biden, you served as one of his closest advisors. According to a report, you were part of a group of insiders who implemented a strategy to minimize 'the president's age-related struggles,'" Comer wrote to Ricchetti in June, referencing a Wall Street Journal report. "The scope and details of that strategy cannot go without investigation. If White House staff carried out a strategy lasting months or even years to hide the chief executive's condition—or to perform his duties—Congress may need to consider a legislative response." Axios reporter Alex Thompson, who co-wrote "Original Sin" with CNN host Jake Tapper about Biden's cognitive decline and his aides' alleged attempts to cover it up, told PBS program Washington Week earlier this year that Ricchetti was part of a small group of insiders that some dubbed Biden's "Politburo." He also played a key role in Biden's legislative agenda, most notably as one of the Democratic negotiators working with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to avoid a full-blown fiscal crisis over the U.S. national debt in early 2023. It comes after another close former aide, former White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain, appeared before investigators for his own transcribed interview last week. Like Klain, Ricchetti is appearing on voluntary terms—the fourth former Biden aide to do so. Three of the previous six Biden administration officials who appeared before the House Oversight Committee did so under subpoena. Former White House physician Kevin O'Connor, as well as former advisers Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, all pleaded the Fifth Amendment during their compulsory sit-downs. But the three voluntary transcribed interviews that have occurred so far have lasted more than five hours, as staff for both Democrats and Republicans take turns in rounds of questioning.


New York Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
This Democrat Wants Cognitive Standards in Congress. Her Colleagues Disagree.
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Democrat of Washington, was sitting through an Appropriations Committee meeting on Tuesday, staring up at the oil paintings of the past chairs of the powerful panel. One, in particular, she found deeply unsettling. 'It's concerning to sit there under a large portrait of Kay Granger,' Ms. Perez said, referring to the former Republican congresswoman from Texas who had suffered from mental decline for years when a conservative news outlet in her state found her, at the age of 81, living in an assisted living facility that included a memory care unit while she still held office. The portrait served as a glaring reminder to Ms. Perez, the 37-year-old auto shop owner and second-term congresswoman who co-chairs the center-leaning Blue Dog Coalition, that she has served in Congress alongside aging colleagues, some of whom suffer from mental decline that renders them unable to perform large portions of their jobs. Ms. Perez was hesitant to name any particular colleague, because she said the problem was bigger than any one person. But she said she was 'concerned' about what she had heard about Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, 88, the nonvoting delegate representing Washington, D.C., who is clinging to her seat despite clear signs of mental decline. There are other cases, she said, that are too painful to ignore. So last month, Ms. Perez offered an amendment to a federal spending bill that aimed to create basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to do their jobs 'unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.' Her amendment was unanimously rejected, which Ms. Perez chalked up to the fact that it prompted an 'uncomfortable conversation' and that Congress does not like to make new rules for itself. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.