Medical Bulletin 21/August/2023

Here are the top medical news of the day:

Reasoning skills in children can be promoted by healthy diet, reading, and sports

Reasoning skills are crucial skills in learning, academic performance, and everyday problem-solving. According to a recent study conducted at the University of Eastern Finland, improved overall diet quality and reduced consumption of red meat, as well as increased time spent in reading and organised sports enhanced reasoning skills among children over the first two school years.

Children who spent more time in reading and organised sports showed better reasoning skills than their peers. On the other hand, excessive time spent on a computer and unsupervised leisure-time physical activity were associated with poorer reasoning skills. Screen time, active school transportation, recess physical activity, and physical activity intensity were not associated with reasoning skills.

Reference: Effects of 2-year dietary and physical activity intervention on cognition in children—a nonrandomized controlled trial, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, DOI 10.1111/sms.14464

Exercise benefits in the brain can be replicated by Platelets

Pre-clinical trials by University of Queensland researchers have found an injection of a specific blood factor can replicate the benefits of exercise in the brain. The study has been published in Nature Communications.

Dr Odette Leiter and Dr Tara Walker from UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute led a team which discovered platelets, the tiny blood cells critical for blood clotting, secrete a protein that rejuvenates neurons in aged mice in a similar way to physical exercise.

The researchers focused on exerkines, the biological compounds released into the bloodstream during exercise, which are believed to stimulate the exercise-induced response in the brain

Reference :Platelets can replicate the benefits of exercise in the brain, Nature Communications, DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-39873-9

Mouth rinse analysis could spot early heart disease risk

Gum inflammation leads to periodontitis, which is linked with cardiovascular disease. Now researchers used a simple oral rinse to see if levels of white blood cells — an indicator of gum inflammation — in the saliva of healthy adults could be linked to warning signs for cardiovascular disease. They found that high levels correlated with compromised flow-mediated dilation, an early indicator of poor arterial health.

The team chose pulse-wave velocity, which can measure the stiffness of arteries, and flow-mediated dilation, a measure of how well arteries can dilate to allow for higher blood flow, as key indicators of cardiovascular risk. These measure arterial health directly: stiff and poorly functioning arteries raise patients’ risk of cardiovascular disease

Reference: Oral inflammatory load predicts vascular function in a young adult population: A pilot study, Frontiers in Oral Health, DOI 10.3389/froh.2023.1233881