Talking on Zoom Could Help Older People Stave off Dementia

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Talking on Zoom Could Help Older People Stave off Dementia

Claremont Colonic Newsletter

Talking on video-conference services like Zoom during the coronavirus pandemic has helped older people stave off the effects of dementia, a new study has suggested.

Researchers found that regular communication helps maintain long-term memory, and elderly people who often use online tools showed less decline in memory than those who don’t.

The study, by the University of West London’s Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory, studied the communication of 11,418 men and women over the age of 50.

They were asked how often they interacted with friends and family online, on the phone and in person, and then completed memory tests that involved recalling a list of 10 words at various intervals.

The participants who only used “traditional,” face-to-face communication showed more signs of cognitive decline than those who used technology to keep in touch with friends and family.

“This shows for the first time the impact of diverse, frequent and meaningful interactions on long-term memory, and specifically, how supplementing more traditional methods with online social activity may achieve that among older adults,” the study’s leader Snorri Rafnsson said.
“With more and more older adults now using online communication so frequently, especially during the past year of global lockdowns, it poses the question as to what extent technology can help sustain relationships and overcome social isolation, and how that can also help maintain brain health.”

As the pandemic has forced people to stay apart, video conferencing tools like Zoom, Skype and Google Meet have exploded in popularity.

In recent months Zoom has emerged as the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store, repeatedly breaking its download records.

A study last year found that negative thinking is linked to dementia later in life. And separate research found that apathy, the decrease in motivation and goal-directed behavior, could also be a trigger in older adults.


Contributor: Rob Picheta, CNN Health

Salad or Cheeseburger? Your Co-workers Shape Your Food Choices

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Salad or Cheeseburger? Your Co-workers Shape Your Food Choices

Claremont Coloic Newsletter
The foods people buy at a workplace cafeteria may not always be chosen to satisfy an individual craving or taste for a particular food. When co-workers are eating together, individuals are more likely to select foods that are as healthy — or unhealthy — as the food selections on their fellow employees’ trays. “We found that individuals tend to mirror the food choices of others in their social circles, which may explain one way obesity spreads through social networks,” says Douglas Levy, PhD, an investigator at the Mongan Institute Health Policy Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and first author of new research published in Nature Human Behavior. Levy and his co-investigators discovered that individuals’ eating patterns can be shaped even by casual acquaintances, evidence that corroborates several multi-decade observational studies showing the influence of people’s social ties on weight gain, alcohol consumption and eating behavior.

Previous research on social influence upon food choice had been primarily limited to highly controlled settings like studies of college students eating a single meal together, making it difficult to generalize findings to other age groups and to real-world environments. The study by Levy and his co-authors examined the cumulative social influence of food choices among approximately 6,000 MGH employees of diverse ages and socioeconomic status as they ate at the hospital system’s seven cafeterias over two years. The healthfulness of employees’ food purchases was determined using the hospital cafeterias’ “traffic light” labeling system designating all food and beverages as green (healthy), yellow (less healthy) or red (unhealthy).

MGH employees may use their ID cards to pay at the hospitals’ cafeterias, which allowed the researchers to collect data on individuals’ specific food purchases, and when and where they purchased the food. The researchers inferred the participants’ social networks by examining how many minutes apart two people made food purchases, how often those two people ate at the same time over many weeks, and whether two people visited a different cafeteria at the same time. “Two people who make purchases within two minutes of each other, for example, are more likely to know each other than those who make purchases 30 minutes apart,” says Levy. And to validate the social network model, the researchers surveyed more than 1,000 employees, asking them to confirm the names of the people the investigators had identified as their dining partners.

“A novel aspect of our study was to combine complementary types of data and to borrow tools from social network analysis to examine how the eating behaviors of a large group of employees were socially connected over a long period of time,” says co-author Mark Pachucki, PhD, associate professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Based on cross-sectional and longitudinal assessments of three million encounters between pairs of employees making cafeteria purchases together, the researchers found that food purchases by people who were connected to each other were consistently more alike than they were different. “The effect size was a bit stronger for healthy foods than for unhealthy foods,” says Levy.

A key component of the research was to determine whether social networks truly influence eating behavior, or whether people with similar lifestyles and food preferences are more likely to become friends and eat together, a phenomenon known as homophily. “We controlled for characteristics that people had in common and analyzed the data from numerous perspectives, consistently finding results that supported social influence rather than homophily explanations,” says Levy.

Why do people who are socially connected choose similar foods? Peer pressure is one explanation. “People may change their behavior to cement the relationship with someone in their social circle,” says Levy. Co-workers may also implicitly or explicitly give each other license to choose unhealthy foods or exert pressure to make a healthier choice.

The study’s findings have several broader implications for public health interventions to prevent obesity. One option may be to target pairs of people making food choices and offer two-for-one sales on salads and other healthful foods but no discounts on cheeseburgers. Another approach might be to have an influential person in a particular social circle model more healthful food choices, which will affect others in the network. The research also demonstrates to policymakers that an intervention that improves healthy eating in a particular group will also be of value to individuals socially connected to that group.

“As we emerge from the pandemic and transition back to in-person work, we have an opportunity to eat together in a more healthful way than we did before,” says Pachucki. “If your eating habits shape how your co-workers eat — even just a little — then changing your food choices for the better might benefit your co-workers as well.”


Contributor: Massachusetts General Hospital-Science News Daily

Could Taking Your Phone to Bed at Night Increase Your Risk of Colorectal Cancer?

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Could Taking Your Phone to Bed at Night Increase Your Risk of Colorectal Cancer?

Claremont Colonic Newsletter
When you go to bed at night, do you really go to bed, or do you sit there and scroll through your news feed, get caught up on emails, and dive down the rabbit hole of social media on your phone or tablet? How often do you take your computer to bed with you to work? All of these things expose you to blue light, which has been found to promote eyestrain leading to damaged retinal cells. That is just the tip of the iceberg, though, as researchers now have found a strong connection between blue light exposure and colorectal cancer.

Outdoor blue light exposure at night linked to cancer

Scientists found a positive correlation between the amount of blue light shining near people’s homes at night, and the rates of colorectal cancer. The study looked at 661 people living in two Spanish cities – Madrid and Barcelona, who had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer between 2007 and 2013. This group was compared to a group of 1,322 people who did not have a history of cancer and were matched to the study group by sex and age.

Data collection

Images taken by the International Space Station provided access to the type of exposure of outdoor artificial light at night across red, green, and blue spectra. Data on where the participants lived and worked along with other cancer risk factors such as age, BMI, family history of cancer, lifestyle habits such as drinking, smoking, exercise, diet, and sleep were collected along with education and socioeconomic status. Those with cancer were, on average, 67 years old and were more likely to have a family history of cancer.

Previous studies show a link between blue light exposure and cancer

According to study co-author, Manolis Kogevinas, the scientific director of the Servo Ochoa Distinction at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, the research team wanted to build on several other studies that had found a link between night shift work and light that interferes with our internal body clock or circadian rhythm. Previous links have been found between blue light and breast and prostate cancer.

Hormones and circadian rhythm

In the journal of Epidemiology, where the study was published, the researchers said that circadian rhythms are very closely linked to hormones. It is thought that exposure to blue light at night can change the production of certain types of chemicals. This information was built upon previous links to circadian disruption and colon cancer in animal studies.

Being exposed to artificial light at night may depress and delay the release of the hormone melatonin, which is linked to tumor growth and made in the dark phase of the body’s 24-hour cycle.

Not quite granular enough

According to Kogevinas, the study was somewhat limited because they were not able to accurately measure the amount of light that reaches people’s homes.

“I would have liked to have a few thousand people wearing a personal light sensor for a few years! This would have given a much more accurate estimate of light. We measure environmental light and particularly blue light accurately but we are not really measuring what reaches the eyes of the person.”

However, what researchers did find is that exposure to light at night is not a neutral factor in health and wellbeing. In fact, it is something that should be taken seriously. The body needs dark time. Complete dark time, and when it is derailed off of its normal clock and rhythm, the impact is not negligible.

What about computers, tablets, and phones?

Although the latest research does not specifically look at blue light from computers, phones, and tablets, researchers still made a connection and a recommendation.

“Exposing ourselves to unnecessary levels, particularly of blue light, is not necessary. Part of the blue light exposures comes from tablets and smartphones. Companies should develop more their technologies to reduce even further the light emissions.”

So, the takeaway here is that if you have lots of light outside of your bedroom window, get dark out curtains or blinds and keep them shut tight at night. If you are in the habit of taking your phone to bed with you…quit. Leave it outside your bedroom somewhere so that you are not tempted to reach for it during the night. And, stop working in bed! When it is time for sleep, honor your body and give it what it needs to be healthy. Rest is paramount, and exposure to blue light interferes with your body’s natural ability to heal and re-energize!


Contributor-Susan Patterson, Alternative Daily

What Everyone Gets Wrong About Cholesterol in Food

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What Everyone Gets Wrong About Cholesterol in Food

Claremont Colonic and Nutrient Resource Clinic
Many people worry about cholesterol, and with good reason. More than a third of Americans have high cholesterol, putting them at greater risk of stroke and heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. What you eat can play an important role in maintaining cardiovascular health, and it is reasonable to think that eating cholesterol-laden foods will raise your cholesterol levels. But the connection isn’t quite that simple.

“I think for a lot of people it just makes sense, logically, even though the majority of the data, within the context of current intake, show that’s not really the case,” said Alice Lichtenstein, director of Tufts University’s Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory.

The amount of cholesterol in your food doesn’t necessarily translate to the amount of cholesterol in your blood vessels.

The ‘bigger culprit’

The US Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines don’t specify a maximum level for how much cholesterol a person should have in their diet — the recommendation was eliminated in the 2015-2020 publication, and were not included in the newest guidelines released for 2021. The reason: For the most part, the amount of cholesterol we’re taking in is not really a problem.

When thinking about dietary cholesterol, Lichtenstein emphasized that it’s important to take into consideration how much of it people typically eat in a day. She was on the committee that decided the previous dietary guideline recommendation of limiting daily cholesterol intake to 300 milligrams wasn’t necessary. Why? Because most of us were already doing that. Women consume, on average, 250 milligrams of cholesterol a day, and men 350 milligrams, according to Lichtenstein. Therefore, the committee didn’t consider cholesterol a “nutrient of public health concern.” (That is, Americans generally aren’t getting too much or too little of it.)

A 2019 American Heart Association meta-analysis of more than 50 studies did not find a significant association between dietary cholesterol and cardiovascular risk. Where cholesterol intake did seem to increase risk, people were eating as much as three times the average amount.

“Eating foods rich in cholesterol does increase blood cholesterol, usually by a small, but still significant amount,” explained Dr. Stephen Devries, a preventive cardiologist and executive director of the educational nonprofit Gaples Institute in Deerfield, Illinois. But the effect of eating foods that contain a lot of cholesterol “may not be as high as one might expect, because most of the cholesterol in blood actually comes from the body’s own production.” When you consume a bunch of cholesterol, your body will usually make less to compensate.

Of greater concern is what usually gets served up alongside cholesterol: saturated fat. Eating lots of foods high in saturated fat increases the body’s production of low-density lipoproteins, or LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, which can build up inside the arteries, restricting blood flow to the heart and brain, heightening the chance of heart attack or stroke.

“Saturated fat is a bigger culprit for raising blood cholesterol in general than dietary cholesterol,” Devries said.

The role of cholesterol in the body

Animals — including humans — make cholesterol to perform a host of important functions in the body, such as making sex hormones, converting sunlight into vitamin D, and forming part of the cell membrane. Plants don’t make cholesterol, so the cholesterol we get in our diets comes from eating animal products, mainly meat and dairy. And those are top dietary sources of saturated fat — what Devries called “a double whammy for raising blood cholesterol levels.”

There is one popular food that bucks this trend: eggs, which are low in saturated fat but very high in cholesterol. One large egg contains 1.6 grams of saturated fat and a whopping 187 milligrams of cholesterol. In fact, eggs account for a quarter of the cholesterol in the American diet.

Science just can’t seem to decide if eggs are good or bad for your health. Some studies suggest eating eggs increases risk of cardiovascular disease while others conclude it doesn’t. One thing that sometimes gets left out of research that depends on study participants reporting how many eggs they eat is what else they eat. While eggs themselves don’t contain much in the way of saturated fat, their companions at the breakfast table — bacon, sausage, cheese — often do.

“Now we’re realizing it’s much more important to look at dietary patterns, the whole picture,” Lichtenstein said. “You can be thrown off if you look just at the individual foods and not what else is coming in with them.”

Not all high-cholesterol foods are created equal

Nutrition experts stress that it’s crucial not just to cut out so-called bad foods from your diet, but to pay attention to what you’re replacing them with.

A lot of the controversy around the health effects of saturated fats, for instance, has come from studying what happens when people cut down on them without taking into account what they’re eating instead.

“The risk of every dietary factor has been in turns both exaggerated and other times minimized, and that’s definitely the case with saturated fat,” Devries said. “If saturated fat is replaced with refined carbs, like sugar or white bread, then there’s been shown to be no net health benefit. If saturated fat is replaced with other healthier fats, then there’s a clear health benefit with a lower rate of heart disease.”

Seafood — most notably shrimp — can be relatively high in cholesterol. But shellfish and fish are great sources of lean protein for people who eat animal products, and provide essential omega-3 fatty acids that the body can’t make on its own. That makes them good substitutes for red meat and poultry.

As for the age-old egg question, Devries recommends sticking to no more than four full eggs a week — that is, including the yolk, where almost all the cholesterol is, along with about half the protein. Lichtenstein isn’t too concerned about limiting egg intake for most people, especially since it’s a high-quality protein that’s easy to store and prepare. Both experts agree that if you eat eggs regularly and don’t have high LDL levels, you’re probably fine to keep doing what you’re doing.

Healthy eating patterns

There are some people who should be more careful about their intake of eggs and other foods high in cholesterol. That includes people who have borderline high cholesterol (over 200 milligrams/deciliter) or other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as family history, or those who are hypersensitive to dietary cholesterol, meaning that even regular amounts raise their blood cholesterol levels significantly. People with type 2 diabetes should also watch the cholesterol in their foods. Individuals should talk to their doctors about their risks.

For most people, fretting over the cholesterol in particular foods is less meaningful to heart health than trading out the usual suspects — like red meat, full-fat dairy, packaged foods and sugary drinks — for more vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains and beans. The 2019 AHA meta-analysis recommends shifting to healthy eating patterns that emphasize these unprocessed ingredients, such as the Mediterranean diet.

“It’s most important to focus on the categories of healthful foods, rather than discussing individual nutrients like saturated fat or cholesterol,” Devries said. “Most people don’t look at (nutrition) labels and what I’m trying to encourage people to do is to eat more food that doesn’t have labels.”

So instead of stressing out every time you eat eggs, why not gradually incorporate more leafy greens in your weekly meal plan? Or if it’s more appealing, start by adding fresh seasonal fruit to your dessert a couple nights of the week. Ease into the new eating habits and keep the big picture in mind.


Contributor: Amanda Schupak – CNN Health