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Vitamin B12 slows "brain shrinkage"

From this article Vitamin B12 link to Alzheimer's backed by study

A recent trial found that "brain shrinkage", which has been associated with Alzheimer's, was slowed in older people taking high doses of vitamins, including B12.

However, an Alzheimer's charity said despite the findings, published in the journal Neurology, it was "too early" to think about taking supplements.

It called for more research into the protective power of vitamins such as B12 - found in meat, fish and eggs

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Personal Trainers Austin

New Orleans Fitness Training

50th anniversary of the greatest homerun of all time

See video

October 13, 1960, the bottom of the ninth, the seventh game of the World Series after 162 regular season games it comes down to one hit - a walk-off homerun.  

They say baseball is a child's game played by adults in their pajamas. Mazeroski rounding the bases was a childlike expression of exuberance, innocence, and joy. Seeing that homerun brings back vivid memories of my childhood. As a young boy in the 1960s my grandfather used to take my brother and me to Forbes Field to see the Pirates. Bill Mazeroski and the Pirates of the 1960s played great baseball, but I hardly remember a play and I did not attend that World Series.  I remember the excitement and awe of just being there with my brother and grandfather. If I could play a highlight film of my childhood memories going to the Pirate games would be one of the clips. I am thankful to have my grandfather take me there and be a part of it.

Work longer for a sharper memory

A NYT article Taking Early Retirement May Retire Memory, Too reports on a study by two economists that shows that in countries where people work longer people have sharper memories.  See the graph.

While the study is not conclusive it does point to an interesting result. If causation is established rather than just correlation it would be important to know what aspect of work is producing cognitive longevity.  A quote from the article: 

"If work does help maintain cognitive functioning, it will be important to find out what aspect of work is doing that, Dr. Suzman said. “Is it the social engagement and interaction or the cognitive component of work, or is it the aerobic component of work?” he asked. “Or is it the absence of what happens when you retire, which could be increased TV watching?”

Training more can backfire

From this NTY article Why Trainers Say, 'Slow Down':

"Of the tens of thousands of Americans who pay as much as $180 to register for marathons, as many as 25% fail to make it to the race. Injury, illness and loss of motivation as a result of overtraining are major reasons for this."

"No matter how conclusively science may prove the value of rest and recovery, the culture of endurance sports lionizes those who seemingly never rest."

"The body responds beautifully to the right schedule of training stresses," Lynn Bjorklund, who in 1981 set the still-standing female course record for the Pikes Peak Marathon, wrote in an email. "However, too much stress and not enough nutrition or recovery pushes your body toward injury and illness. You need to stay in that zone of just enough, and that takes a very high tuned and honest appraisal of yourself."

Muscles really do have a long memory

From this Science News article Muscles remember past glory:

"Muscles hold memories of their former fitness in nuclei (green, shown on muscle fiber) that help the muscle bounce back to fitness when training begins after a period of inactivity.

Pumping up is easier for people who have been buff before, and now scientists think they know why — muscles retain a memory of their former fitness even as they wither from lack of use.

That memory is stored as DNA-containing nuclei, which proliferate when a muscle is exercised. Contrary to previous thinking, those nuclei aren’t lost when muscles atrophy, researchers report online August 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The extra nuclei form a type of muscle memory that allows the muscle to bounce back quickly when retrained.

The new study suggests that pumping muscles full of nuclei early in life could help stave off muscle loss with age."

Rethinking taking antioxidants to lower free radicals

Exercise increases the production of free radicals, and free radicals have been associated with a number of diseases and with aging.  To combat those free radicals people have taken to popping Vitamins C and D, antioxidants, to decrease the number of free radicals. New research indicates that that might not be a good idea.

 In one study with two groups of exercising rats, one group was injected with antioxidants, and the other group was not. The group of rats injected with antioxidants showed almost no free-radical activity, while the non-injected group had a high level of free radicals.

There were other differences as well.  From this NYT article, Phys Ed: Free the Free Radicals more findings from the study: