Lowering cholesterol helps fight Alzheimer’s, study says

Lowering cholesterol may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Lab experiments suggest that cholesterol is involved with the development of waxy deposits, or plagues that clump together in the brain and characterize Alzheimer’s. A study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, monitored the progression of the disease in 342 people with Alzheimer’s. About 68 per cent of them had high cholesterol,

and more than half

of that group was

taking a cholesterollowering drug

( mostly statins).

The study found

that after three

years, the disease

had progressed

most slowly in those taking the cholesterol lowering drugs. Using a standardized exam ( with a 30-point scale) to test dementia, people taking the drugs declined 1.5 points a year, compared with a drop of 2.4 points for the untreated high cholesterol group and 2.6 points for those with normal levels. However, earlier research has suggested that people with higher scores tend to decline more slowly than those with lower scores. The participants taking the drugs had higher scores on the initial dementia test.

It doesn’t matter if you are black or white. Exercise reduces the risk of breast cancer, says a study published in a recent issue of the Journal of the National Cancer

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Institute. Most of the research into the connection between exercise and breast cancer has studied caucasian women. But this study found that women — black or white — who exercised at least one hour and 20 minutes a week, on average, were 20- per- cent less likely to have breast cancer than their inactive peers. The benefit did not apply to women whose family history made them more likely to develop the cancer. The study involved about 9,000 women between the ages of 35 and 64, half of whom had cancer. About 35 per cent of both groups were black. It did not specify the intensity of the exercise nor the age when it was most appropriate

for prevention.

While salmon has been

identified as one of the

best foods for heart and

brain health, a new study

by researchers at Institute

for Health and the Environment at the University at

Albany’s School of Public

Health found that the contaminant levels in farmed

salmon from certain

regions of the world

increased the risk of cancer enough to outweigh

the heart health benefits

of salmon.The toxin levels

were so high in farmed

salmon from Europe that

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people should only eat a single serving once every five months, the study found. Toxin levels in wild salmon weren’t high enough to exceed the health benefits, the study found. But farmed salmon raised on a diet of fish oil are often heavily contaminated. Farmed salmon from South America had the lowest level of pollutants followed by farmed salmon from North America. Salmon from Europe had the highest level of pollutants, according to the study. The American Heart Association recommends people eat fish — particularly fatty fishes like salmon or mackerel — at least twice a week. And eating farmed salmon is still considered beneficial for some groups such as older people recovering from coronary problems, says Steven Schwager, one of the authors of the report and researcher at Cornell University. “But for young people worried about a lifetime accumulation of pollutants, the risks far outweigh the benefits.” Recent studies from Scotland have reported that feeding salmon vegetable oils except in the final stages of farming resulted in salmon with significantly lower levels of contaminant but with most of the omega-3 fatty acids obtained from the standard diet.