Education delays dementia, but just wait
Having a higher level of education seems to delay the onset of dementia, but once cognitive decline begins, the descent is more precipitous, according to a study at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
The findings confirm the so-called “cognitive-reserve hypothesis,” which posits that people with more education have a sort of brain “reserve” that allows them to withstand the ravages of dementia longer.
“The working hypothesis has been that people with higher education have some kind of reserve either in neuronal capacity or compensatory ability which allows the symptoms to be masked for a longer period of time,” said study author Charles B. Hall, an associate professor of biostatistics.
Hall and his colleagues found that for each additional year of formal education, the accelerated memory decline associated with dementia was delayed by about 2 1/2 months. Once that accelerated decline stopped, however, the people with more education experienced a rate of cognitive decline about 4 percent faster for each additional year of schooling.
Device can sniff out sneaky smokers
If you’re sneaking smokes when no one’s looking, beware: One lung doctor says a common device can determine whether someone is a smoker. The blood carbon monoxide detector could be used to ferret out people who hide a cigarette habit, said pulmonologist Dr. Sridhar Reddy. It also could help show patients what smoking is doing to their bodies, he added.
“It starts a conversation to make people more and more aware of what smoking can do to them and to give them more information about why they should quit, instead of a boring sermon every time,” said Reddy, who works in St. Clair, Mich.
There are already ways to detect whether someone is a smoker, according to Reddy. Doctors can test a person’s breath, blood or saliva. But none of the methods is very convenient, Reddy said, so he decided to take a look at another device: the pulse oximeter, a device that’s placed over the fingertip and measures oxygen levels in the blood by passing light waves into the skin.
Reddy tested an oximeter that also measures carbon monoxide levels in the blood. It’s typically used on firefighters and others who have been exposed to smoke. It accurately spotted 95 percent of all smokers Reddy tested and could be calibrated for more sensitivity, he said.
The world has a weight problem
Worldwide, 40 percent of men and 30 percent of women are now overweight, and 24 percent of men and 27 percent of women are obese, say researchers who looked at data from 63 countries.
The study included information on more than 168,000 men and women ages 18 to 80 (average age 48) living on five continents. All of them were evaluated by their family doctors.
“The study results show that excess body weight is pandemic, with one-half to two-thirds of the overall study population being overweight or obese,” said lead author Beverley Balkau, director of research at INSERM in France. INSERM is the French equivalent of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
