Vitamin D Twice a Day May Keep Vertigo Away

Vitamin D Twice a Day May Keep Vertigo Away:

Having suffered from Vertigo, I was interested in this post and felt it might shed light on this condition for other people.

Newswise — MINNEAPOLIS –  Taking vitamin D and calcium twice a day may reduce your chances of getting vertigo again, according to a study published in the August 5, 2020, online issue of Neurology^®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. ­­­­

“Our study suggests that for people with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, taking a supplement of vitamin D and calcium is a simple, low-risk way to prevent vertigo from recurring,” said Ji-Soo Kim, M.D., Ph.D., of Seoul National University College o

f Medicine in Korea. “It is especially effective if you have low vitamin D levels to begin with.”
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo happens when a change in head position gives you a sudden spinning sensation. It’s one of the most common types of vertigo. Treatment includes a doctor performing a series of head movements that shift particles in the ears that cause the vertigo, but the condition tends to recur frequently. About 86% of people with this form of vertigo find that it interrupts their daily life or causes them to miss days at work.

The study looked at 957 people in Korea with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo who were treated successfully with the head movements. The participants were separated into two groups, intervention and observation.

The 445 people in the intervention group had their vitamin D levels taken at the start of the study. The 348 people with vitamin D levels below 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) were started on supplements with 400 international units of vitamin D and 500 milligrams of calcium twice daily, while those with vitamin D levels equal to or greater than 20 ng/mL were not given supplements.
The 512 people in the observation group did not have their vitamin D levels monitored and they did not get supplements.

Those in the intervention group who took  the supplements had a lower recurrence rate for vertigo episodes after an average of one year than those in the observation group. People taking supplements had an average recurrence rate of 0.83 times per person-year, compared to 1.10 times per person-year for those in the observation group, or a 24% reduction in the annual recurrence rate.

There appeared to be greater benefit for those who were more deficient in vitamin D at the start of the study. Those who started with vitamin D levels lower than 10 ng/mL saw a 45% reduction in annual recurrence rate, while those starting with vitamin D levels at 10 to 20 ng/mL saw only a 14% reduction.­ A total of 38% of the people in the interventional group had another episode of vertigo, compared to 47% of those in the observation group.

“Our results are exciting because so far, going to the doctor to have them perform head movements has been the main way we treat benign paroxysmal positional vertigo,” said Kim. “Our study suggests an inexpensive, low-risk treatment like vitamin D and calcium tablets may be effective at preventing this common, and commonly recurring, disorder.”

A limitation of the study is that a large number of participants did not complete the entire study, with more people assigned to take the supplements dropping out of the study than in the observation group.

This study was supported by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Learn more about the brain at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology’s free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life^® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The American Academy of Neurology is the world’s largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 36,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Does Migraine Leave Your Head Spinning? Non-invasive Treatment Shows Early Promise

Does Migraine Leave Your Head Spinning? Non-invasive Treatment Shows Early Promise:

There may be some good news for people with vestibular migraine, a type of migraine that causes vertigo and dizziness with or without headache pain. A small, preliminary study suggests that non-invasive nerve stimulation may show promise as a treatment for vestibular migraine attacks, a condition for which there are currently no approved treatments. The study is published in the September 25, 2019, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Early Life Exposure to Nicotine Alters Neurons, Predisposes Brain to Addiction Later in Life

Early Life Exposure to Nicotine Alters Neurons, Predisposes Brain to Addiction Later in Life | Newswise: News for Journalists:

 Neonatal exposure to nicotine alters the reward circuity in the brains of newborn mice, increasing their preference for the drug in later adulthood, report researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine in a published study.

 

Credit: Photo credit: Cell Image Library, NCMIR

A stained micrograph of a mouse purkinje neuron, a type of brain cell that releases the GABA neurotransmitter, and which is affected by nicotine exposure.

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Newswise — Neonatal exposure to nicotine alters the reward circuity in the brains of newborn mice, increasing their preference for the drug in later adulthood, report researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine in a study published “in press” April 24, 2019 in Biological Psychiatry.

A UC San Diego School of Medicine team of scientists, headed by senior author Davide Dulcis, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, with colleagues at Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System and Michigan State University, found that exposure to nicotine in the first few weeks of life (through maternal lactation) induced a variety of long-term neurological changes in young mice.

Specifically, it caused a form of neuroplasticity that resulted in increased numbers of modified neurons in the ventral tagmental area (VTA) of the brain following nicotine re-exposure as adults. These neurons displayed a different biochemistry than other neurons, including greater receptivity to nicotine and a greater likelihood of subsequent addictive behavior.

“Previous studies have already shown that maternal smoking and early postnatal exposure to nicotine are associated with altered children’s behaviors and an increased propensity for drug abuse in humans,” said Dulcis. “This new research in mice helps elucidate the mechanisms of how and why. Neonatal nicotine exposure primes VTA neurons for a fate they normally would not have taken, making them more susceptible to the effects of nicotine when the animals are again exposed to nicotine later in life.”  

When young neurons are exposed to a foreign drug, such as nicotine, they create a molecular “memory,” said first author Ben Romoli, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Dulcis’ lab. By increasing the expression of nicotine receptors and the molecular marker Nurr1, a protein that is normally found only in dopaminergic neurons, these GABA- and Glutamate-expressing neurons acquire the “readiness” to switch to a dopaminergic program when properly motivated by nicotine in the adult.

“We found that when the same animals are exposed to nicotine in adulthood, a fraction of these ‘primed’ glutamatergic neurons in the reward center begins to express genes required to produce dopamine. More dopamine in the system generates enhanced reward responses that lead to increased nicotine preference.”

Dulcis said uncovering the molecular mechanism and the identity of the neuronal network involved is an important step toward a fuller comprehension of how a complex condition like addiction may work.

“Our pre-clinical work identified new cellular and molecular targets that may guide future clinical studies to refine treatment strategies,” Dulcis said. “Because we found that this form of nicotine-induced neuroplasticity facilitates addiction to other addictive substances, such as ethanol in adults, uncovering the mechanism contributing to increased addiction susceptibility offers the rare opportunity to discover new ways to interfere with the mechanism of drug-mediated plasticity and prevent the negative consequences on reward-seeking behavior in the adult.”

Researchers said the results are highly relevant to tobacco control programs because the neonatal nicotine effect observed in the study were induced by exposure through maternal lactation and current state and local policies do not regulate this particular type of nicotine intake.

“We are planning to investigate whether early exposure to other commonly used drugs, such as alcohol or recently legalized marijuana or opioids, can induce similar adaptations of the reward center that affects drug preferences in adulthood,” said Dulcis. “It would be also interesting to determine whether this form of neurotransmitter plasticity is inducible or reversible at different stages of life when the brain is still extremely plastic and prone to drug addiction, like in adolescence.”

The scientists are also investigating applications aimed at improving the behavioral performance of animal models for diseases associated with a loss of dopaminergic neurons, such as Parkinson’s disease.

Co-authors of the study include: Adrian F. Lozada and Darwin K. Berg, UC San Diego; Ivette M. Sandoval and Frederic P. Manfredsson, Michigan State University; and Thomas S. Hnasko, UC San Diego and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.

Funding for this research came, in part, from the National Institutes of Health, the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind (grant 2012-18), the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (271R-0020) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (5R21NS098079).

Aerobic Exercise Improves Cognition, Even in Young Adults

Aerobic Exercise Improves Cognition, Even in Young Adults:


Aerobic exercise is known to improve cognition in the elderly; a new study at Columbia University’s Taub Institute shows it’s good for adults as young as 20.


In brief
Aerobic exercise training improves cognition, even for young and middle-aged adults, according to a new study led by researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The study of 132 adults between the ages of 20 and 67 found that aerobic exercise training increases executive function—cognitive processes important for reasoning, planning, and problem-solving—in adults as young as 20, although the effect was stronger with increasing age.
Why it matters
The study indicates that aerobic exercise training improves cognition in younger adults, suggesting that exercise can prevent or slow the appearance of at least some age-related cognitive changes.
The flexibility of the exercise protocol, in which participants choose when and how to exercise, could make the intervention more attractive to the general population and increase its chances for adoption.
Previous studies focused on elderly
Most previous studies of exercise and cognition have focused on the elderly, and those that include young adults were small and did not include a randomly assigned control group.
In the new study, Yaakov Stern, PhD, chief of cognitive neuroscience in the department of Neurology and a faculty member in the Taub Institute, and Richard Sloan, PhD, chief of behavioral medicine, assigned 132 individuals with below median aerobic capacity to an aerobic exercise training program or to a control program of stretching and core-strengthening exercises.
All participants worked out at a local YMCA four times a week, and those in the exercise group could choose any form of aerobic exercise as long as they reached target heart rates. Data from heart rate monitors worn by the participants were downloaded to an on-site computer.
Participants were tested for executive function, processing speed, language, attention, and episodic memory prior to being assigned to groups and at 12 and 24 weeks.
Exercise improves the brain’s executive function
After 24 weeks, there was significant improvement in executive function in the aerobic exercise group for participants of all ages, and the greater the participant’s age, the greater the improvement in executive function.
“Executive function usually peaks around age 30,” Stern says, “and I think that aerobic exercise is good at rescuing lost function, as opposed to increasing performance in those without a decline.”
Executive function underlies many day-to-day activities. For example.e bill paying requires planning, organizing, and shifting from one related task to another. These activities rely on intact executive function.
Aerobic exercise did not improve cognitive function in processing speed, language, attention, or episodic memory for participants of any age. Some studies have found that aerobic exercise improves these features in adults above 55, and Stern says that a larger study may be able to detect improvement in younger adults. It’s also possible that exercise has different effects in young vs. older adults.
Aerobic exercise increases gray matter in brain
Brain imaging at baseline and 24 weeks revealed that aerobic exercise training is associated with significantly increased cortical thickness in the left caudal middle frontal cortex. The increase in gray matter was not associated with the participant’s age. And increases in gray matter did not correlate directly with a corresponding change in any cognitive domain.
Still, several aerobic exercise studies in older adults have noted comparable changes in the frontal lobe, suggesting that aerobic exercise has a beneficial effect on a brain area that is associated with executive function.
More Information                 
Yaakov Stern also is professor of neuropsychology in the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry and a member of the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Richard Sloan is the Nathaniel Wharton Professor of Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry.
The study, “Effect of Aerobic Exercise on Cognition in Younger Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” appeared online January 30th in the journal Neurology.

Bilingualism May Save Brain Resources as You Age

Bilingualism May Save Brain Resources as You Age

People in countries that are divided into Territories where different languages are spoken, like Canada and Switzerland in particular, are somewhat more fortunate as they have to be fluent in two or three languages and this must be beneficial for the brain to retain.  It is a shame that bilingualism is not encouraged from an early age.

 
 Newswise — Montreal, January 9, 2017 – New research findings show that bilingual people are great at saving brain power, that is. To do a task, the brain recruits different networks, or the highways on which different types of information flow, depending on the task to be done. The team of Ana Inés Ansaldo, PhD, a researcher at the Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal and a professor at Université de Montréal, compared what are known as functional brain connections between seniors who are monolingual and seniors who are bilingual. Her team established that years of bilingualism change how the brain carries out tasks that require concentrating on one piece of information without becoming distracted by other information. This makes the brain more efficient and economical with its resources.

Can Work Stress Be Linked to Stroke?

 There are so many relatively young people who have strokes today that this article needs consideration if you have a lot of stress in your life, whether at home or at work.  Strokes are serious conditions which in some cases it is difficult to recover from, some people never do. 

 
Can Work Stress Be Linked to Stroke?

Blood Pressure Reading

Blood pressure is a good indicator of how healthy a person is.  It is so important to check this as there are so many conditions that can result from high blood pressure and low blood pressure is not good either.  So many people are unaware of how their lifestyle affects their blood pressure, for instance alcohol consumption, high intake of salt, fast food.

The Scientists are constantly working on finding causes to our illnesses to help us maintain a healthy body.  Our job is to respect this body which is an amazing machine.


Meta-Analysis: Any Blood Pressure Reading Above Normal May Increase Risk of Stroke