Objective: Do lifestyle activities buffer normal aging-related declines in cognitive performance? The emerging literature will benefit from theoretically broader measurement of both lifestyle ...activities and cognitive performance, and longer-term longitudinal designs complemented with dynamic statistical analyses. We examine the temporal ordering of changes in lifestyle activities and changes in cognitive neuropsychological performance in older adults. Method: We assembled data (n = 952) across a 12-year (5-wave) period from the Victoria Longitudinal Study. Latent change score models were applied to examine whether (and in which temporal order) changes in physical, social, or cognitive lifestyle activities were related to changes in three domains of cognitive performance. Results: Two main results reflect the dynamic coupling among changes in lifestyle activities and cognition. First, reductions in cognitive lifestyle activities were associated with subsequent declines in measures of verbal speed, episodic memory, and semantic memory. Second, poorer cognitive functioning was related to subsequent decrements in lifestyle engagement, especially in social activities. Conclusions: The results support the dual contention that (a) lifestyle engagement may buffer some of the cognitive changes observed in late life, and (b) persons who are exhibiting poorer cognitive performance may also relinquish some lifestyle activities.
Men receiving androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) for prostate cancer may be at risk for cognitive impairment; however, evidence is mixed in the existing literature. Our study examined the impact of ...ADT on impaired cognitive performance and explored potential demographic and genetic predictors of impaired performance.
Patients with prostate cancer were assessed before or within 21 days of starting ADT (n = 58) and 6 and 12 months later. Age- and education-matched patients with prostate cancer treated with prostatectomy only (n = 84) and men without prostate cancer (n = 88) were assessed at similar intervals. Participants provided baseline blood samples for genotyping. Mean-level cognitive performance was compared using mixed models; cognitive impairment was compared using generalized estimating equations.
ADT recipients demonstrated higher rates of impaired cognitive performance over time relative to all controls (P = .01). Groups did not differ at baseline (P > .05); however, ADT recipients were more likely to demonstrate impaired performance within 6 and 12 months (P for both comparisons < .05). Baseline age, cognitive reserve, depressive symptoms, fatigue, and hot flash interference did not moderate the impact of ADT on impaired cognitive performance (P for all comparisons ≥ .09). In exploratory genetic analyses, GNB3 single-nucleotide polymorphism rs1047776 was associated with increased rates of impaired performance over time in the ADT group (P < .001).
Men treated with ADT were more likely to demonstrate impaired cognitive performance within 6 months after starting ADT relative to matched controls and to continue to do so within 12 months after starting ADT. If confirmed, findings may have implications for patient education regarding the risks and benefits of ADT.
Whether there are racial and ethnic disparities in the rate of cognitive decline among older adults is not clear. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences in cognitive ...decline among racial and ethnic older adults.
Data were from the Health and Retirement Study, waves 1998-2010. Participants were community dwelling at baseline (n = 9,492), mostly female participants (58.8%), ranged in age from 65 to 105 years (M = 74.41, SD = 6.97), and had education levels that averaged less than high school (M = 11.7, SD = 3.4). Cognition was examined using a combined score from word recall, Serial 7's, backward counting, and naming tasks. To determine changes in cognition across 12 years, we utilized mixed effects models.
Results indicated that after adjusting for covariates, race or ethnicity was unrelated to changes in cognitive performance, but there were significant differences in baseline cognition and these differences were more pronounced after adjusting for age, gender, education, poverty, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure.
It is evident that there are significant differences in baseline cognition, although the rate of cognitive decline across 12 years did not vary significantly by race. These findings support previous assertions that the rate of cognitive decline is not associated with race and suggest that it is likely that baseline cognitive performance is a better indicator of performance over time.
To determine the size of the impairment across different cognitive domains in preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD), a meta-analysis based on 47 studies involving 9,097 controls and 1,207 preclinical ...AD cases was conducted. There were marked preclinical deficits in global cognitive ability, episodic memory, perceptual speed, and executive functioning; somewhat smaller deficits in verbal ability, visuospatial skill, and attention; and no preclinical impairment in primary memory. Younger age (< 75 years) and shorter follow-up intervals (< 3 years) were associated with larger effect sizes for both global cognitive ability and episodic memory. For global cognitive ability, studies that used population-based sampling yielded larger effect sizes; for episodic memory, larger differences were seen in studies that preidentified groups in terms of baseline cognitive impairment. Within episodic memory, delayed testing and recall-based assessment resulted in the largest effect sizes. The authors conclude that deficits in multiple cognitive domains are characteristic of AD several years before clinical diagnosis. The generalized nature of the deficit is consistent with recent observations that multiple brain structures and functions are affected long before the AD diagnosis.
Understanding the genetic architecture of gene expression is an intermediate step in understanding the genetic architecture of complex diseases. RNA sequencing technologies have improved the ...quantification of gene expression and allow measurement of allele-specific expression (ASE). ASE is hypothesized to result from the direct effect of cis regulatory variants, but a proper estimation of the causes of ASE has not been performed thus far. In this study, we take advantage of a sample of twins to measure the relative contributions of genetic and environmental effects to ASE, and we find substantial effects from gene × gene (G×G) and gene × environment (G×E) interactions. We propose a model where ASE requires genetic variability in cis, a difference in the sequence of both alleles, but where the magnitude of the ASE effect depends on trans genetic and environmental factors that interact with the cis genetic variants.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBMB, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This study examined whether social activity diversity, a novel concept indicating an active social lifestyle, is associated with lower subsequent loneliness, and decreased loneliness is further ...associated with less chronic pain over time.
2528 adults from the Midlife in the United States Study (Mage = 54 yrs) provided data at baseline (2004–2009) and 9 years later. Social activity diversity was operationalized by Shannon's entropy that captures the variety and evenness of engagement across 13 social activities (0–1). Participants reported feelings of loneliness (1–5), presence of any chronic pain (yes/no), the degree of chronic pain-related interference (0−10), and the number of chronic pain locations. Indirect associations of social activity diversity with chronic pain through loneliness were evaluated, adjusting for sociodemographics, living alone, and chronic conditions.
Higher social activity diversity at baseline (B = -0.21, 95%CI = −0.41, −0.02) and an increase in social activity diversity over time (B = -0.24, 95%CI = −0.42, −0.06) were associated with lower loneliness 9 years later. An increase in loneliness was associated with 24% higher risk of any chronic pain (95%CI = 1.11, 1.38), greater chronic pain-related interference (B = 0.36, 95%CI = 0.14, 0.58), and 17% increase in the number of chronic pain locations (95%CI = 1.10, 1.25) at the follow-up, after controlling for corresponding chronic pain at baseline and covariates. Social activity diversity was not directly was associated with chronic pain, but there were indirect associations through its association with loneliness.
Diversity in social life may be associated with decreased loneliness, which in turn, may be associated with less chronic pain, two of the prevalent concerns in adulthood.
•An active social lifestyle has potential to alleviate loneliness and chronic pain•A new measure of social activity diversity captures an active social lifestyle•Social activity diversity is associated with lower subsequent loneliness•Decreased loneliness is further associated with less chronic pain over time
Apolipoprotein E and Cognitive Performance Small, Brent J; Rosnick, Christopher B; Fratiglioni, Laura ...
Psychology and aging,
12/2004, Letnik:
19, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and may also affect cognitive performance in normal aging. Evidence of the presence and magnitude of ...ε4-related cognitive deficits was examined with a meta-analysis of the available literature. Thirty-eight studies were included, and cognitive performance was collapsed into 8 domains. Results indicated significant APOE-ε4 group differences for global cognitive functioning, episodic memory, and executive functioning, in favor of non-ε4 carriers. In addition, older age and APOE-ε4 heterozygosity was associated with smaller ε4-related impairments. The meta-analysis results suggest that APOE-ε4 genotype does affect cognitive performance in healthy aging, although the influence is relatively small and specific to certain domains of cognitive performance.
Non-additive interaction between genetic variants, or epistasis, is a possible explanation for the gap between heritability of complex traits and the variation explained by identified genetic loci. ...Interactions give rise to genotype dependent variance, and therefore the identification of variance quantitative trait loci can be an intermediate step to discover both epistasis and gene by environment effects (GxE). Using RNA-sequence data from lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from the TwinsUK cohort, we identify a candidate set of 508 variance associated SNPs. Exploiting the twin design we show that GxE plays a role in ∼70% of these associations. Further investigation of these loci reveals 57 epistatic interactions that replicated in a smaller dataset, explaining on average 4.3% of phenotypic variance. In 24 cases, more variance is explained by the interaction than their additive contributions. Using molecular phenotypes in this way may provide a route to uncovering genetic interactions underlying more complex traits.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01381.001.
Disordered sleep has been linked to impaired emotional functioning in healthy and depressed individuals. Little is known, however, about how chronic sleep problems influence emotional reactivity in ...everyday life. Participants with major or minor unipolar depressive disorder (n = 60) and healthy controls (n = 35) reported on sleep and emotional responses to daily life events using a computerised Experience Sampling Method. We examined whether impaired sleep quality influenced emotional reactivity to daily events, and if this relationship was altered by unipolar mood disorders. Among healthy individuals, sleep difficulties were associated with enhanced negative affect (NA) to unpleasant events and a dulled response to neutral events. However, among mood-disordered persons, sleep difficulties were associated with higher NA across all types of everyday life events. Impaired sleep quality differentially affects daily life emotional reactions as a function of depression.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
Little is known about longitudinal symptom burden, its consequences for well‐being, and whether lifestyle moderates the burden in older survivors.
Methods
The authors report on 36‐month ...data from survivors aged ≥60 years with newly diagnosed, nonmetastatic breast cancer and noncancer controls recruited from August 2010 through June 2016. Symptom burden was measured as the sum of self‐reported symptoms/diseases as follows: pain (yes or no), fatigue (on the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy FACT‐Fatigue scale), cognitive (on the FACT‐Cognitive scale), sleep problems (yes or no), depression (on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale), anxiety (on the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory), and cardiac problems and neuropathy (yes or no). Well‐being was measured using the FACT‐General scale, with scores from 0 to 100. Lifestyle included smoking, alcohol use, body mass index, physical activity, and leisure activities. Mixed models assessed relations between treatment group (chemotherapy with or without hormone therapy, hormone therapy only, and controls) and symptom burden, lifestyle, and covariates. Separate models tested the effects of fluctuations in symptom burden and lifestyle on function.
Results
All groups reported high baseline symptoms, and levels remained high over time; differences between survivors and controls were most notable for cognitive and sleep problems, anxiety, and neuropathy. The adjusted burden score was highest among chemotherapy‐exposed survivors, followed by hormone therapy‐exposed survivors versus controls (P < .001). The burden score was related to physical, emotional, and functional well‐being (eg, survivors with lower vs higher burden scores had 12.4‐point higher physical well‐being scores). The composite lifestyle score was not related to symptom burden or well‐being, but physical activity was significantly associated with each outcome (P < .005).
Conclusions
Cancer and its treatments are associated with a higher level of actionable symptoms and greater loss of well‐being over time in older breast cancer survivors than in comparable noncancer populations, suggesting the need for surveillance and opportunities for intervention.
Cancer and its treatments lead to a higher level of actionable symptoms and greater loss of function among older breast cancer survivors than expected based on the experience of noncancer controls, suggesting the need for surveillance and intervention.
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