Medical Bulletin 26/ March/ 2024

Here are the top medical news for the day:

Can MIND diet reduce risk of dementia?

A new study from the Columbia University in New York suggested that eating a healthy diet can slow the effects of ageing on the human body, including on the brain.

The findings published in the journal Annals of Neurology revealed that the right diet could, in effect, slow down the pace of brain aging, reducing the risk of dementia.

A suitable diet such as “The MIND diet” can influence brain aging by providing essential nutrients that support cognitive function and protect against damage. For instance, diets rich in antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamins B, C, D, and E can help reduce inflammation, oxidative stress, and the buildup of harmful proteins in the brain, which are all factors associated with accelerated aging and dementia risk.

In the study, researchersanalysed participants ≥60 years-old, free of dementia and having dietary, epigenetic, and follow-up data. They assessed healthy diet as long-term adherence to the Mediterranean-Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay diet (MIND diet) and measured the pace of ageing from blood DNA methylation data collected in 2005–2008 using the Dunedin-PACE epigenetic clock.

Of 1,644 included participants with a mean age of 69.6,140 developed dementia and 471 died over 14 years of follow-up. A greater MIND score was associated with slower Dunedin-PACE and reduced risks for dementia and mortality. In mediation analysis, slower Dunedin-PACE accounted for 27% of the diet-dementia association and 57% of the diet-mortality association.

The findings suggested that slower pace of aging mediates part of the relationship of healthy diet with reduced dementia risk. Monitoring pace of aging may inform dementia prevention. However, a large fraction of the diet-dementia association remains unexplained and may reflect direct connections between diet and brain aging that do not overlap other organ systems.

“The MIND diet provides key nutrients for brain health: long-chain omega-3 fatty acids with anti-inflammatory and vaso-protective properties, polyphenols which are antioxidants, as well as phenolic compounds, vitamins E and B, sphingolipids or choline with properties against amyloidogenesis, oxidative stress, or inflammation.” Said Dr. Aline Thomas, First author of the study.

Reference: Aline Thomas PhD, Calen P. Ryan PhD, Avshalom Caspi PhD, Zhonghua Liu PhD, Terrie E. Moffitt PhD, Karen Sugden PhD, Jiayi Zhou MPH, Daniel W. Belsky PhD, Yian Gu MD, PhD;Diet, Pace of Biological Aging, and Risk of Dementia in the Framingham Heart Study; Journal: Annals of Neurology; https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.26900

Smoking is not linked to weight loss, finds study

In a study published in the journal Addiction, researchers reported that people who started smoking as well as a lifetime of smoking may increase visceral fat, an unhealthy fat that is associated with an increased risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia.

Smoking cigarettes is the leading cause of preventable diseases and death and kills more than 4,80,000 people every year. People who smoke often have a lower body weight than people who don’t smoke, but they also have more abdominal and visceral fat, especially the kind found deep within the abdominal cavity.

As part of their study, the researchersused a type of statistical analysis to determine whether smoking increased abdominal fat.They used results from different genetic studies to find if there was a causal relationship between smoking and an increase in abdominal fat, also referred to as abdominal adiposity.They also examined previous genetic studies in order to identify genes that are linked to the habit of smoking as well as body fat distribution and further used that genetic information to establish whether people who had genes that were associated with a smoking habit typically had a difference in the distribution of their body fat.

“Our study showed that smoking initiation and lifetime smoking may causally increase abdominal adiposity, as indicated by higher waist to hip ratio… While we found no evidence of an association between smoking heaviness and abdominal fat distribution, our reverse causal analysis indicated that higher abdominal adiposity may causally increase smoking heaviness,” said the study authors.

“It’s not true that smoking makes you thin. And in fact, the image of thinness with smoking is one that’s been heavily promoted by the industry in some of their advertising,”said Dr. Jonathan Klein, a physician at Stanford University in California and a researcher in tobacco control.“It isn’t that smoking makes you thin, it’s that when smokers try to quit, they sometimes gain weight. When people stop their addiction, they often find that they have more food cravings and it also is an oral activity and so people who are used to having their mouth busy often replace the cigarette or others tobacco behaviour with food behaviour.”

Reference: Journal: Addiction

Is Vitamin D related to lower back pain?

According to a study conducted at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and published in the journal Nutrients, there is no correlation between vitamin D deficiency and lower back pain.

The widespread prevalence of low vitamin D status poses a significant public health concern across many countries. Vitamin D is known to offer a wide range of health benefits. Its integral role in maintaining musculoskeletal health, including facilitating calcium absorption, bone mineralization, and supporting muscle function, is widely acknowledged.

As the most prevalent musculoskeletal disorder, low back pain (LBP) has emerged as the leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide.Previous observational studies have observed a cross-sectional association of vitamin D deficiency with LBP. However, there is little evidence of the association.

For the study, researchers analyzed information from the UK Biobank. They used data from 1,35,934 participants between the ages of 40 and 69 years. They accessed vitamin D information on all participants, including their levels and whether or not they took a vitamin D or multivitamin supplement. They also collected information on any lower back pain diagnoses.

Scientists reported about 21.6% of all study participants had a vitamin D deficiency and about 4% regularly took a vitamin D supplement.About 3.8% of study participants reported lower back pain the month before the study started. Another 3.3% were diagnosed with lower back pain for the first time during a median follow-up time of 8.5 years.

Further, researchers found that vitamin D deficiency and vitamin D supplementation were not associated with lower back pain. They believe this is partially due to the multifactorial nature of lower back pain.

The study concluded that although the role of vitamin D in LBP is plausible due to potential anti-inflammatory effects and a general role in maintaining musculoskeletal health, the causes of LBP are likely too complex to be significantly influenced by vitamin D supplement use alone.

Reference:Sha Sha,Li-Ju Chen 1,Hermann Brenner andBen Schöttker; Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Status and Vitamin D Supplements Use Are Not Associated with Low Back Pain in the Large UK Biobank Cohort; Journal: Nutrients; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16060806