Brain health Archive

At middle age, the brain begins to draw on more of its capacity for improved judgment and decision making.

If you forget a name or two, take longer to finish the crossword, or find it hard to manage two tasks at once, you're not on the road to dementia. What you're experiencing is your brain changing the way it works as you get older. And in many ways it's actually working better. Studies have shown that older people have better judgment, are better at making rational decisions, and are better able to screen out negativity than their juniors are.

Medications called anticholinergics are used to treat a host of conditions—overactive bladder, depression, allergies, and Parkinson's disease. They usually aren't recommended for older adults because one of the most common side effects is confusion and difficulty reasoning. Early studies have also indicated that long-term anticholinergic use is associated with an increased risk of dementia, and a recent study by researchers at the University of Washington adds more evidence to support that connection. The results were published online Jan. 26, 2015, by JAMA Internal Medicine.

The researchers tracked almost 3,500 men and women ages 65 and older who were free of dementia. When they matched prescription data for the previous 10 years with the participants' health outcomes, they determined that using anticholinergics was associated with an increased risk of developing dementia. Moreover, dementia risk increased with the dosage of the drugs and the length of time they were used. While people who had taken these drugs daily for the equivalent of three months had no increase in risk, those who had used them for over three years had a 54% greater risk than nonusers.

By Dr. Anne Fabiny, Editor in Chief, Harvard Women's Health Watch

Exercise, eat a healthy diet, and manage blood pressure and cholesterol to lower your odds.

Q. I just discovered that I have a hole in my heart that my doctor called a patent foramen ovale, which was found during an ultrasound. What are the pros and cons of having it repaired?

A. All people start off with an oval, flap-like opening (called a foramen ovale) between the right and left upper chambers of their hearts. This small hole usually closes during infancy. But in about one in four people, it stays open and is known as a patent foramen ovale (PFO). Most people with the condition have no symptoms and never know they have it unless it's discovered by accident, as happened to you.

Well-educated people who report memory problems may face a higher risk of stroke.

Minor memory slips—such as losing your keys or forgetting an acquaintance's name—are common as we age. However, people who express concern about their memory may have a heightened risk of stroke, particularly if they're highly educated, according to a study in the January 2015 Stroke.

There are many reasons why you might want to give someone chocolate on Valentine’s Day. There’s the tradition of it, and the idea of sweets for your sweetheart. Here’s another tempting reason: certain compounds in chocolate, called cocoa flavanols, have recently been linked with improved thinking skills. Italian researchers found people who drank a daily cocoa brew with a lot of flavanols (more than 500 milligrams) significantly improved their scores on tests that measured attention, executive function, and memory. How might cocoa flavanols boost thinking skills? They may help brain cells connect with each other. Dark chocolate is a good source of flavonols. It’s also a good source of calories. Adding it to your diet without taking out other foods can lead to weight gain, which may wipe out any health gain.

If you have diabetes or prediabetes and you need motivation to get your blood sugar under control, consider this: a study published Dec. 2, 2014, in Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that diabetes in midlife appears to age the mind at a faster rate in later life. Researchers analyzed changes in the thinking skills of more than 15,000 people during a 20-year period. The average age at the start of the study was 57. Twenty years later, among people with a history of diabetes, there was 19% more decline than expected. There were even declines, although smaller, among people with a high blood sugar condition known as prediabetes. "We know that over time, diabetes, like hypertension, will cause mini-strokes in the brain that will impair one's thinking and memory. This study strengthens the claim that addressing cardiovascular risk factors like diabetes early may prevent dementia in the future," says Dr. David Hsu, a psychiatrist in the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. You can lower your blood sugar—and your risk of diabetes—by exercising, losing weight, and cutting back on refined grains and added sugars.