Secrets of "SuperAgers" who possess brains as sharp as people 20-30 years younger

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11.29.22

Secrets of "SuperAgers" who possess brains as sharp as people 20 to 30 years younger
Study suggests that HDL or "good" cholesterol is less beneficial than previously thought, especially for Black adults
New subvariants, family gatherings may bring more Covid-19 after holiday, but experts don't expect severe surge
Mother loses peripheral vision from apparent exposure to mercury in beauty creams

Secrets of "SuperAgers" who possess brains as sharp as people 20 to 30 years younger

Learning has always come easy for 85-year-old Carol Siegler. At a young age, she taught herself to spell and play piano. She graduated from high school at 16 and immediately went to college. She got her pilot's license at age 23. At 82, Siegler won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament for her age group. She continues to volunteer and work out regularly.

Siegler is a cognitive "SuperAger," possessing a brain as sharp as someone 20 to 30 years younger. She is part of an elite group enrolled in the Northwestern SuperAging Research Program, which has been studying seniors with superior memories for 14 years.

To be a SuperAger, a person must be over 80 and undergo extensive cognitive testing and have scans of their brain taken annually. They're accepted only if their memory is as good as or better than those of cognitively normal people in their 50s and 60s.

Studies have found that SuperAger brains are different in a number of ways. For one, the cortex – responsible for thinking, decision-making and memory – remains much thicker and shrinks more slowly than those of people in their 50s and 60s.

Postmortem studies of SuperAger brains have also found bigger, healthier cells in the entorhinal cortex that have direct connections to another key memory center: the hippocampus. Compared with the brains of their cognitively healthy peers, SuperAger brains also have fewer tau tangles – a sign of Alzheimer's and other dementias.

SuperAgers are eager to be in environments good for the brain, challenging themselves often by reading or learning. They are also very social, often volunteering in their communities, like Siegler.

Although we can't all qualify to be SuperAgers, we can all take a cue from them and keep our brains healthy and engaged by staying social and challenging ourselves every day.

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Study suggests that HDL or 'good' cholesterol is less beneficial than previously thought, especially for Black adults

High-density lipoprotein, or HDL, cholesterol – often referred to as the "good" cholesterol – may not be as useful in predicting the risk of heart disease and protecting against it as previously thought, according to new research funded by the National Institutes of Health.

A study from the 1970s found that high levels of HDL cholesterol concentration were associated with low coronary heart disease risk, a link that has since been widely accepted and used in heart disease risk assessments. However, only White Americans were included in that study.

Now, research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that low levels of HDL cholesterol were associated with higher risk of heart attack among White adults, but the same was not true among Black adults. Also, higher levels of HDL cholesterol were not found to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease for either group.

The researchers used data from thousands of people who were at least 45 years old when they enrolled in the program between 2003 and 2007, and their health was analyzed over an average of 10 years.

The researchers found that high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides "modestly" predicted heart disease risk among both Black and White adults.

But they suggest that more work is needed to understand what's driving the racial differences in the link between HDL and heart disease risk.

And in the meantime, current clinical assessments for heart disease risk "may misclassify risk in Black adults, potentially hindering optimal cardiovascular disease prevention and management programs for this group," the researchers wrote.

New subvariants, family gatherings may bring more Covid-19 after holiday, but experts don't expect severe surge

With millions of Americans having traveled to gather with friends and family over Thanksgiving, experts expect that those gatherings stirred up social networks and gave new coronavirus subvariants fresh pockets of vulnerable people to infect. As a result, cases and hospitalizations may tick up after the holiday, but experts are hopeful they won't be the big waves of winters past.

"Covid [test] positivity is going up," said Shishi Luo, associate director of bioinformatics and infectious disease at the genetic testing company Helix, which has been monitoring coronavirus variants. "It's increasing fastest among 18- to 24-year-olds" in the Helix sampling.

Omicron subvariants BQ.1 and its offshoot BQ.1.1, which are descendants of BA.5, now dominate transmission in the US. For the week ending Nov. 26, the CDC estimates that BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 caused 57% of all new Covid-19 cases in the US.

Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths have remained flat for the past four weeks. On average, more than 300 Americans are still dying and 3,400 people are being hospitalized each day with Covid-19, according to CDC data.

If there's anything working against Americans now, it's the vaccination rate.

New research indicates that a country's vaccination rate matters more than any other single factor when it comes to the effects of variants on a population.

CDC data shows that two-thirds of the population has completed the primary series of the Covid-19 vaccines, and only 11% of those who are eligible have gotten an updated bivalent booster.

A new study found that the updated boosters work like the original boosters. They protect against symptomatic infection in the range of 40% to 60%, meaning that even when vaccine protection is its most potent, about a month after getting the shot, people may still be vulnerable to breakthrough infections.

That's in about the same range as typical efficacy for flu vaccines.

Mother loses peripheral vision from apparent exposure to mercury in beauty creams

A woman in Minnesota lost part of her vision and inadvertently put her entire household at risk of mercury poisoning, most likely from using beauty creams used for whitening skin containing high levels of the toxic chemical, according to a case report shared exclusively with CNN.

The report, shared by Dr. Erin Batdorff with the Minnesota Poison Control System, details the extensive symptoms experienced by the woman, also a mother, and how home visits conducted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) found high levels of mercury in her children's bedrooms, bedding, household towels and laundry area.

The woman, whose name has been concealed in the report to protect her identity, was referred to Batdorff's team after she reported an array of symptoms to multiple doctors, ranging from insomnia and leg pain to muscle weakness, fatigue and, eventually, the loss of her peripheral vision (which Batdorff says is a more extreme symptom). Clinical tests revealed elevated levels of mercury in her blood and urine.

Mercury has long been used in skin whitening products due to its ability to block the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to skin. US Food and Drug Administration regulations and the Minamata Convention on Mercury – an international treaty to protect human health and the environment from mercury – limit the use of mercury in cosmetics, excluding those used around the eye area, to 1mg/kg of mercury, also known as 1 part per million (ppm).

The products found in the woman's home ranged from 4,590 ppm to 18,000 ppm.

The woman's story is one of many in the state of Minnesota and other parts of the US in recent years where women and entire households are believed to have been exposed to inorganic mercury from the prolonged use of skin whitening products that fail to disclose they contain harmful levels of the toxic chemical.

Beauty products containing mercury remain easily accessible in local malls and markets throughout the US and through online retailers, experts say, aided by the fact that they fail to list mercury as an ingredient. Batdorff and other experts are calling for greater awareness, regular testing of products and stricter enforcement of regulations to help combat the problem.

Don't ruin your slumber during the holidays. Try these sleep expert tips.

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Chasing Life

One of the biggest public health setbacks from the Covid-19 pandemic has been the drop in routine childhood vaccination, including against measles. A new study found that vaccination rates for the disease dropped throughout the pandemic and hit the lowest coverage rate in more than a decade.

Although global measles vaccinations mostly improved from 2000 to 2021, with coverage of the first dose of the vaccines increasing from 72% in 2000 to 86% in 2019, rates fell from 83% in 2020 to 81% in 2021.

Over that same time period, measles vaccination prevented an estimated 56 million deaths worldwide.

Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, but in 2019, there were almost 1,300 cases reported in the country, the highest number since 1992. Most recently, an outbreak in Ohio has sickened over two dozen children across 12 day cares and schools, nearly all of them unvaccinated.

This fall, the US joined a list of 30 other countries with circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus. A case of paralytic polio had been detected in an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County, New York, and samples of wastewater from communities nearby tested positive for the virus.

Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus occurs when local immunity is low enough to allow transmission of the original weakened virus that is used in the polio vaccine. As the virus circulates and genetic mutations occur, it can regain the ability to infect the central nervous system and cause paralysis.

However, virus transmission does not happen from US vaccinations against the disease. Unlike some other countries, the US has not used the oral polio vaccine that uses a weakened form of the virus since 2000.

In London, where the virus was also found in wastewater samples, the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation enacted a polio vaccine booster dose campaign for all children between the ages of 1 and 9.

The pandemic has no doubt been difficult for everyone, but we shouldn't let that public health crisis create a new one. Just as with Covid, we are all in this together and can do our part to prevent these diseases by making sure that we and our children are up to date on all of our vaccines.

We all know sleep is vital, so why do many of us still find it so difficult to prioritize? Sleep scientist Rebecca Robbins explains why we sleep in the first place and how to ensure we get a good night's rest.