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WEDNESDAY, Feb. 22, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Even modest drinking can speed up the loss of brain cells and formation of the plaques that are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, research in mice shows.These plaques are an accumulation of toxic proteins.“These findings suggest alcohol might accelerate the pathological cascade of Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages,” said study co-author Shannon Macauley. She is an associate professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.About 60% to 80% of dementia cases are Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.For the new study, researchers used a 10-week chronic drinking approach where mice were given the choice to drink water or alcohol. This mimics...

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 22, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Combining breathing exercises with gradual aerobic activity may benefit teens who are recovering slowly from a concussion.New research found that while the two therapies each offer benefits, together they led to even greater improvement in thinking and memory skills, depression and mood.The findings are scheduled for presentation in Boston and online at the meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, April 22 to 27. “When someone has a concussion, it can affect the body’s autonomic nervous system, and it is increasingly clear that this underlies the inability to tolerate exercise, problems with thinking skills and mood issues in those with persisting symptoms,” said study author R. Davis Moore, an assistant professor of exercise...

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 22, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- A new study links obesity with 21 Alzheimer’s disease-related genes.This may help explain why Alzheimer’s is often more frequent among adults who experienced obesity in midlife, according to researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.To study this, the investigators used data from more than 5,600 participants in the long-running Framingham Heart Study to analyze 74 Alzheimer’s-related genes.Of those genes, 21 were either underexpressed or overexpressed in obesity, the research team found. Gene expression refers to the process by which information encoded in a gene is turned into a body function.The researchers found that 13 Alzheimer’s-related genes were associated with body mass index (BMI), an...

TUESDAY, Feb. 21, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Deaths from methamphetamine among Americans increased 50-fold between 1999 and 2021, a chilling new study reports.Most of these deaths also involved heroin or fentanyl, according to researchers."The staggering increase in methamphetamine-related deaths in the United States is largely now driven by the co-involvement of street opioids," said lead researcher Rachel Hoopsick, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign."Mixing methamphetamine and opioids isn’t a new phenomenon," she said. "Although there has been an increase in the popularity of using these types of substances together, what has truly changed is the toxicity of the unregulated street drug supply, predominantly of fentanyl and other...