Breastfeeding may help prevent cognitive decline

October 23, 2021

Science Daily/University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

A new study led by researchers at UCLA Health has found that women over the age of 50 who had breastfed their babies performed better on cognitive tests compared to women who had never breastfed. The findings, published in Evolution, Medicine and Public Health, suggest that breastfeeding may have a positive impact on postmenopausal women's cognitive performance and could have long-term benefits for the mother's brain.

"While many studies have found that breastfeeding improves a child's long-term health and well-being, our study is one of very few that has looked at the long-term health effects for women who had breastfed their babies," said Molly Fox, PhD, lead author of the study and an Assistant Professor in the UCLA Department of Anthropology and the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. "Our findings, which show superior cognitive performance among women over 50 who had breastfed, suggest that breastfeeding may be 'neuroprotective' later in life."

Cognitive health is critical for wellbeing in aging adults. Yet, when cognition becomes impaired after the age of 50, it can be a strong predictor of Alzheimer's Disease (AD), the leading form of dementia and cause of disability among the elderly -- with women comprising nearly two-thirds of Americans living with the disease.

Many studies also show that phases of a woman's reproductive life-history, such as menstruation, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause can be linked to a higher or lower risk for developing various health conditions like depression or breast cancer, yet few studies have examined breastfeeding and its impact on women's long-term cognition. Of those that have, there has been conflicting evidence as to whether breastfeeding might be linked to better cognitive performance or Alzheimer's risk among post-menopausal women.

"What we do know is that there is a positive correlation between breastfeeding and a lower risk of other diseases such as type-2 diabetes and heart disease, and that these conditions are strongly connected to a higher risk for AD," said Helen Lavretsky, MD, the senior author of the study and a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.

"Because breastfeeding has also been found to help regulate stress, promote infant bonding and lower the risk of post-partum depression, which suggest acute neurocognitive benefits for the mother, we suspected that it could also be associated with long-term superior cognitive performance for the mother as well," added Dr. Fox.

To find out, the researchers analyzed data collected from women participating in two cross-sectional randomized controlled 12-week clinical trials at UCLA Health: 1) The "Brain Connectivity and Response to Tai Chi in Geriatric Depression and Cognitive Decline," included depressed participants. 2) The "Reducing Risk for Alzheimer's Disease in High-Risk Women through Yoga or Memory Training that included non-depressed participants with some subjective memory complaints and a risk for heart disease.

Among the two trials, 115 women chose to participate, with 64 identified as depressed and 51 non-depressed. All participants completed a comprehensive battery of psychological tests measuring learning, delayed recall, executive functioning and processing speed. They also answered a questionnaire about their reproductive life-history that included questions about the age they began menstruating, number of complete and incomplete pregnancies, the length of time they breastfed for each child and their age of menopause.

Importantly, none of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia, or other psychiatric diagnoses such as bipolar disorder, alcohol or drug dependence, neurological disorders or had other disabilities preventing their participation or taking any psychoactive medications. There was also no significant difference in age, race, education or other cognitive measures between the depressed and non-depressed participants.

Key findings from the researchers' analysis of the data collected from questionnaires on the women's reproductive history revealed that about 65% of non-depressed women reported having breastfed, compared to 44% of the depressed women. All non-depressed participants reported at least one completed pregnancy compared to 57.8% of the depressed participants.

Results from the cognitive tests also revealed that those who had breastfed, regardless of whether they were depressed or not, performed better in all four of the cognitive tests measuring for learning, delayed recall, executive functioning and processing compared to women who had not breastfed.

Separate analyses of the data for the depressed and non-depressed groups also revealed that all four cognitive domain scores were significantly associated with breastfeeding in the women who were not depressed. But in the women who were depressed, only two of the cognitive domains -- executive functioning and processing speed -- were significantly associated with breastfeeding.

Interestingly, the researchers also found that longer time spent breastfeeding was associated with better cognitive performance. When they added up all the time a woman spent breastfeeding in her life, they found that women who did not breastfeed had significantly lower cognitive scores in three out of four domains compared to women who had breastfed for 1-12 months, and in all four domains compared to the women who had breastfed for more than 12 months. Women who had breastfed the longest had the highest cognitive test scores.

"Future studies will be needed to explore the relationship between women's history of breastfeeding and cognitive performance in larger, more geographically diverse groups of women. It is important to better understand the health implications of breastfeeding for women, given that women today breastfeed less frequently and for shorter time periods than was practiced historically," said Dr. Fox.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211023122141.htm

For women, greater exposure to estrogen in life may protect brain regions that are vulnerable to Alzheimer’s

November 4, 2021

Science Daily/Weill Cornell Medicine

The drop in estrogen levels that occurs with menopause brings declines in the volumes of "gray matter," the cellular matter of the brain, in key brain regions that are also affected in Alzheimer's disease. But a new study from Weill Cornell Medicine researchers, in collaboration with the University of Arizona, suggests that greater cumulative exposure to estrogen in life, for example from having had more children or from having taken menopause hormone therapy, may counter this brain-shrinking effect.

The findings, reported Nov. 3 in Neurology, come from an analysis of personal histories, MRI scans and cognitive tests on 99 women in their late 40s to late 50s. The researchers confirmed an earlier finding linking menopause to lower gray matter volume (GMV) in brain areas that are also vulnerable to Alzheimer's. But they also linked indicators of higher overall estrogen exposure, such as a longer span of reproductive years (menarche to menopause), more children and the use of menopause hormone therapy and hormonal contraceptives, to higher GMV in some of these brain areas.

The study was an observational study rather than a clinical trial, but it adds to the evidence that estrogen may have a protective effect on the female brain, limiting the loss of gray matter that normally comes with menopause, and thereby potentially reducing Alzheimer's risk.

"Our findings suggest that while the menopause transition may bring vulnerability for the female brain, other reproductive history events indicating greater estrogen exposure bring resilience instead," said study senior author Dr. Lisa Mosconi, an associate professor of neuroscience in neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine and director of the Women's Brain Initiative, and associate director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Researchers estimate that nearly two thirds of those living with Alzheimer's in the United States are women. The higher prevalence of Alzheimer's in women may be due in part to women's greater longevity, among other reasons. A leading hypothesis is that that vulnerability relates to estrogen.

Receptors for estrogen molecules are found in cells throughout women's brains, and the sex hormone has long been known not just to help steer brain development and behavior but also generally to have a nourishing and protecting role in the central nervous system. That protection doesn't last forever, though. Estrogen levels decline steeply during the transition through menopause, and as recent research from Dr. Mosconi and others has shown, women tend to experience significant GMV loss during this transition.

The volume loss occurs especially in brain regions that are the most heavily affected in Alzheimer's, and at roughly the same time of life when the long, slow process of late-onset Alzheimer's is believed to start. Thus, women's mid-life loss of estrogen may be a key factor behind the higher risk of Alzheimer's.

The flip side of this hypothesis is that more estrogen, in particular a cumulatively greater estrogen exposure, could serve as a counter to the brain-weakening effect of menopause. That possibility is what Dr. Mosconi and her team sought to investigate in the new study.

The analysis covered 99 women aged 46-58 and a comparison group of 29 similarly aged men. It confirmed that the post-menopausal and peri-menopausal (starting menopause) women, compared with the pre-menopausal women and the men, had significantly lower GMV -- adjusted for age and head size -- in brain areas such as the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex and temporal lobe regions, which are heavily affected by Alzheimer's.

By contrast, among the women, having more estrogen exposure as implied by various factors was associated with greater GMV in certain brain areas. Longer reproductive span, for example, was significantly linked to more GMV in a cluster of regions near the top of the brain including the superior parietal lobule and precuneus of the left hemisphere. Having had more children was significantly associated with more GMV in inferior and middle frontal gyri, and middle and inferior temporal gyri. Having used hormone replacement therapy was associated with more GMV in superior frontal gyrus and several other brain regions. All these brain regions are known to be affected by aging and Alzheimer's.

The results support the idea that estrogen can be protective, the researchers say, and suggest that further investigation of the specific biological pathways underlying this effect could yield medical or lifestyle changes that help women reduce their risk of cognitive decline with aging as well as Alzheimer's dementia risk.

"We're hoping now to get further into the details of these links between estrogen and GMV, for example by comparing the effects of surgical menopause and spontaneous menopause, and by focusing specifically on certain types of estrogen exposure, such as menopause hormone therapy," said study first author Eva Schelbaum, research assistant in Dr. Mosconi's laboratory. "The goal as always is to understand why Alzheimer's affects more women than men, and how we can reduce that risk.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211104140355.htm

Depression, anxiety may be linked to c-section risk among pregnant women

October 20, 2021

Science Daily/Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan

Depression and anxiety in pregnant women may be connected to the type of delivery they have, new research suggests.

Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders have already been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes like low birth weight and preterm birth. And now, a new Michigan Medicine study finds that they may also be linked to significantly higher rates of first time cesarean deliveries among women who were otherwise at low risk of having one.

"Our findings reinforce the importance of better identifying and treating perinatal depression and anxiety disorders in pregnant women," said senior author Vanessa Dalton, M.D., M.P.H., obstetrician gynecologist at University of Michigan Health Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital.

"It's critical to better understand how these mood disorders increase the likelihood of cesarean section deliveries, which we know have both short and long-term health consequences for both expecting moms and their babies."

Researchers analyzed national data for 360,225 delivery hospitalizations among commercially insured women ages 15-44 during the decade between 2008 and 2017, with 24% including a first-time delivery by cesarean section. The findings appear in Health Affairs.

The study is among the largest to document a link between predated mood and anxiety disorders and first-time c-sections among low-risk pregnant women. Previous research on this relationship is limited, often including patients who had previous cesarean deliveries -- one of the most significant predictors of a repeat c-section -- or who may not have already been diagnosed with a perinatal mood disorder.

Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders affect as many as one in five reproductive-age women in the United States, and the prevalence of these disorders more than doubled between 2006 and 2015 among childbearing women in the U.S. The prevalence of suicidal ideation and intentional self-harm in the year before or after a birth also rose during that time period, with suicide being a leading cause of maternal mortality.

"There's been growing recognition that mental health is really important during the time of pregnancy," Dalton said. "Maternal suicide risk is especially high the year following delivery."

Anxiety and depression have numerous other negative consequences for women and their children, Dalton said, including adverse birth outcomes, higher rates of maternal morbidity, and lost earnings.

Estimated costs of untreated perinatal mood and anxiety disorders also exceed $14 billion in the U.S. from conception through the first five years of a child's life and may affect the long-term use of health care resources for both women and their children, authors note.

Caesarian section risks

Reducing the rate of first-time cesarean sections is a Healthy People 2030 goal in the U.S. endorsed by numerous public health and professional societies.

Like any major surgery, cesarean deliveries come with several associated risks, including blood clots, hemorrhaging, infection and risks to future pregnancies. Most women who undergo a cesarean section for their first birth will go on to have a repeat cesarean section.

"Cesarean sections are a major contributing factor to maternal morbidity events after a delivery with many adverse downstream effects," Dalton said. "We need to understand all factors that may increase a woman's chance of a c-section delivery so we can avoid any unnecessary risks."

Authors note that the Healthy People goal is to reduce caesarians by 2.3% -- and that about women with a prenatal diagnosis of anxiety or depression had a predicted probability of having a cesarean section that was about 3.5% higher than women without anxiety or depression.

Women with these disorders were more likely to be older, be White, and reside in a household with income more than 400 percent of poverty compared with those without perinatal mood and anxiety disorders

While reasons for the relationship are speculative, there have been unproven theories, including a notion that prenatal anxiety is sometimes focused on the delivery itself -- which may prompt providers to turn to cesarean to reduce the labor process. Others have theorized that maternal distress may affect placental development, which in turn may impact symptoms of fetal distress during labor that could prompt a caesarian section.

But none of these speculations have been proven and further studies are needed to gain insight on the association, Dalton said.

"We need more research to clarify the relationship between perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and primary cesarean section rates to enhance our understanding of the consequences of these disorders for health outcomes," she said. "This could potentially inform efforts to develop and evaluate effective treatments and policy interventions."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211020135842.htm

Stress on mothers can influence biology of future generations

October 13, 2021

Science Daily/University of Iowa

A mother's response to stress can even influence her grandchildren.

Biologists at the University of Iowa found that roundworm mothers subjected to heat stress passed, under certain conditions and through modifications to their genes, the legacy of that stress exposure not only to their offspring but even to their offspring's children.

The researchers, led by Veena Prahlad, associate professor in the Department of Biology and the Aging Mind and Brain Initiative, looked at how a mother roundworm reacts when she senses danger, such as a change in temperature, which can be harmful or even fatal to the animal. In a study published last year, the biologists discovered the mother roundworm releases serotonin when she senses danger. The serotonin travels from her central nervous system to warn her unfertilized eggs, where the warning is stored, so to speak, and then passed to offspring after conception.

Examples of such genetic cascades abound, even in humans. Studies have shown that pregnant women affected by famine in the Netherlands from 1944 to 1945, known as the Dutch Hunger Winter, gave birth to children who were influenced by that episode as adults -- with higher rates than average of obesity, diabetes, and schizophrenia.

In this study, the biologists wanted to find out how the memory of stress exposure was stored in the egg cell.

"Genes have 'memories' of past environmental conditions that, in turn, affect their expression even after these conditions have changed," Prahlad explains. "How this 'memory' is established and how it persists past fertilization, embryogenesis, and after the embryo develops into adults is not clear. "This is because during embryogenesis, most organisms typically reset any changes that have been made to genes because of the genes' past activity."

Prahlad and her teams turned to the roundworm, a creature regularly studied by scientists, for clues. They exposed mother roundworms to unexpected stresses and found the stress memory was ingrained in the mother's eggs through the actions of a protein called the heat shock transcription factor, or HSF1. The HSF1 protein is present in all plants and animals and is activated by changes in temperature, salinity, and other stressors.

The team found that HSF1 recruits another protein, an enzyme called a histone 3 lysine 9 (H3K9) methyltransferase. The latter normally acts during embryogenesis to silence genes and erase the memory of their prior activity.

However, Prahald's team observed something else entirely.

"We found that HSF1 collaborates with the mechanisms that normally act to 'reset' the memory of gene expression during embryogenesis to, instead, establish this stress memory," Prahlad says.

One of these newly silenced genes encodes the insulin receptor, which is central to metabolic changes with diabetes in humans, and which, when silenced, alters an animal's physiology, metabolism, and stress resilience. Because these silencing marks persisted in offspring, their stress-response strategy was switched from one that depended on the ability to be highly responsive to stress, to relying instead on mechanisms that decreased stress responsiveness but provided long-term protection from stressful environments.

"What we found all the more remarkable was that if the mother was exposed to stress for a short period of time, only progeny that developed from her germ cells that were subjected to this stress in utero had this memory," Prahlad says. "The progeny of these progeny (the mother's grandchildren) had lost this memory. However, if the mother was subjected to a longer period of stress, the grandchildren generation retained this memory. Somehow the 'dose' of maternal stress exposure is recorded in the population."

The researchers plan to investigate these changes further. HSF1 is not only required for stress resistance but also increased levels of both HSF1 and the silencing mark are associated with cancer and metastasis. Because HSF1 exists in many organisms, its newly discovered interaction with H3K9 methyltransferase to drive gene silencing is likely to have larger repercussions.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211013114108.htm

Study links air pollution to nearly 6 million preterm births around the world

Data on indoor and outdoor pollution comes from all inhabited continents

September 28, 2021

Science Daily/University of California - San Francisco

Air pollution likely contributed to almost 6 million premature births and almost 3 million underweight babies in 2019, according to a UC San Francisco and University of Washington global burden of disease study and meta-analysis that quantifies the effects of indoor and outdoor pollution around the world.

The analysis, published September 28, 2021, in PLOS Medicine, is the most in-depth look yet at how air pollution affects several key indicators of pregnancy, including gestational age at birth, reduction in birth weight, low birth weight, and preterm birth. And it is the first global burden of disease study of these indicators to include the effects of indoor air pollution, mostly from cook stoves, which accounted for two-thirds of the measured effects.

A growing body of evidence points to air pollution as a major cause of preterm birth and low birthweight. Preterm birth is the leading cause of neonatal mortality worldwide, affecting more than 15 million infants every year. Children with low birthweight or who are born premature have higher rates of major illness throughout their lives.

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 90 percent of the world's population lives with polluted outdoor air, and half the global population is also exposed to indoor air pollution from burning coal, dung and wood inside the home.

"The air pollution-attributable burden is enormous, yet with sufficient effort, it could be largely mitigated," said lead author Rakesh Ghosh, PhD, a prevention and public health specialist at the Institute for Global Health Sciences at UCSF.

The analysis, which was conducted with researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, quantified preterm birth and low birthweight risks based on total indoor and outdoor pollution exposure, while also accounting for the likelihood that the negative effects taper off at higher levels.

The study concluded that the global incidence of preterm birth and low birthweight could be reduced by almost 78 percent if air pollution were minimized in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where indoor pollution is common and preterm birth rates are the highest in the world.

But it also found significant risks from ambient air pollution in more developed parts of the world. In the United States, for example, outdoor air pollution is estimated to have contributed to almost 12,000 preterm births in 2019.

Previously, the same research team quantified the effects of air pollution on early life mortality, concluding that it contributed to the deaths of 500,000 newborns in 2019.

"With this new, global and more rigorously generated evidence, air pollution should now be considered a major driver of infant morbidity and mortality, not just of chronic adult diseases," Ghosh said. "Our study suggests that taking measures to mitigate climate change and reduce air pollution levels will have significant health co-benefit for newborns."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210928141834.htm

Eating more plant foods may lower heart disease risk in young adults, older women

August 4, 2021

Science Daily/American Heart Association

Eating more nutritious, plant-based foods is heart-healthy at any age, according to two research studies published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association.

In two separate studies analyzing different measures of healthy plant food consumption, researchers found that both young adults and postmenopausal women had fewer heart attacks and were less likely to develop cardiovascular disease when they ate more healthy plant foods.

The American Heart Association Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations suggest an overall healthy dietary pattern that emphasizes a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, skinless poultry and fish, nuts and legumes and non-tropical vegetable oils. It also advises limited consumption of saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, red meat, sweets and sugary drinks.

One study, titled "A Plant-Centered Diet and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease during Young to Middle Adulthood," evaluated whether long-term consumption of a plant-centered diet and a shift toward a plant-centered diet starting in young adulthood are associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease in midlife.

"Earlier research was focused on single nutrients or single foods, yet there is little data about a plant-centered diet and the long-term risk of cardiovascular disease," said Yuni Choi, Ph.D., lead author of the young adult study and a postdoctoral researcher in the division of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis.

Choi and colleagues examined diet and the occurrence of heart disease in 4,946 adults enrolled in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. Participants were 18- to 30-years-old at the time of enrollment (1985-1986) in this study and were free of cardiovascular disease at that time. Participants included 2,509 Black adults and 2,437 white adults (54.9% women overall) who were also analyzed by education level (equivalent to more than high school vs. high school or less). Participants had eight follow-up exams from 1987-88 to 2015-16 that included lab tests, physical measurements, medical histories and assessment of lifestyle factors. Unlike randomized controlled trials, participants were not instructed to eat certain things and were not told their scores on the diet measures, so the researchers could collect unbiased, long-term habitual diet data.

After detailed diet history interviews, the quality of the participants diets was scored based on the A Priori Diet Quality Score (APDQS) composed of 46 food groups at years 0, 7 and 20 of the study. The food groups were classified into beneficial foods (such as fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and whole grains); adverse foods (such as fried potatoes, high-fat red meat, salty snacks, pastries and soft drinks); and neutral foods (such as potatoes, refined grains, lean meats and shellfish) based on their known association with cardiovascular disease.

Participants who received higher scores ate a variety of beneficial foods, while people who had lower scores ate more adverse foods. Overall, higher values correspond to a nutritionally rich, plant-centered diet.

"As opposed to existing diet quality scores that are usually based on small numbers of food groups, APDQS is explicit in capturing the overall quality of diet using 46 individual food groups, describing the whole diet that the general population commonly consumes. Our scoring is very comprehensive, and it has many similarities with diets like the Dietary Guidelines for Americans Healthy Eating Index (from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service), the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet and the Mediterranean diet," said David E. Jacobs Jr., Ph.D., senior author of the study and Mayo Professor of Public Health in the division of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis.

Researchers found:

• During 32 years of follow-up, 289 of the participants developed cardiovascular disease (including heart attack, stroke, heart failure, heart-related chest pain or clogged arteries anywhere in the body).

• People who scored in the top 20% on the long-term diet quality score (meaning they ate the most nutritionally rich plant foods and fewer adversely rated animal products) were 52% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease, after considering several factors (including age, sex, race, average caloric consumption, education, parental history of heart disease, smoking and average physical activity).

• In addition, between year 7 and 20 of the study when participants ages ranged from 25 to 50, those who improved their diet quality the most (eating more beneficial plant foods and fewer adversely rated animal products) were 61% less likely to develop subsequent cardiovascular disease, in comparison to the participants whose diet quality declined the most during that time.

• There were few vegetarians among the participants, so the study was not able to assess the possible benefits of a strict vegetarian diet, which excludes all animal products, including meat, dairy and eggs.

"A nutritionally rich, plant-centered diet is beneficial for cardiovascular health. A plant-centered diet is not necessarily vegetarian," Choi said. "People can choose among plant foods that are as close to natural as possible, not highly processed. We think that individuals can include animal products in moderation from time to time, such as non-fried poultry, non-fried fish, eggs and low-fat dairy."

Because this study is observational, it cannot prove a cause-and-effect relationship between diet and heart disease.

Other co-authors are Nicole Larson, Ph.D.; Lyn M. Steffen, Ph.D.; Pamela J. Schreiner, Ph.D.; Daniel D. Gallaher, Ph.D.; Daniel A. Duprez, M.D., Ph.D.; James M. Shikany, Dr.P.H.; and Jamal S. Rana, M.D., Ph.D.

The study was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health; Healthy Food Healthy Lives Institute at the University of Minnesota; and the MnDrive Global Food Ventures Professional Development Program at the University of Minnesota.

In another study, "Relationship Between a Plant-Based Dietary Portfolio and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: Findings from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Prospective Cohort Study," researchers, in collaboration with WHI investigators led by Simin Liu, M.D., Ph.D., at Brown University, evaluated whether or not diets that included a dietary portfolio of plant-based foods with U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved health claims for lowering "bad" cholesterol levels (known as the "Portfolio Diet") were associated with fewer cardiovascular disease events in a large group of postmenopausal women.

The "Portfolio Diet" includes nuts; plant protein from soy, beans or tofu; viscous soluble fiber from oats, barley, okra, eggplant, oranges, apples and berries; plant sterols from enriched foods and monounsaturated fats found in olive and canola oil and avocadoes; along with limited consumption of saturated fats and dietary cholesterol. Previously, two randomized trials demonstrated that reaching high target levels of foods included in the Portfolio Diet resulted in significant lowering of "bad" cholesterol or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), more so than a traditional low-saturated-fat National Cholesterol and Education Program diet in one study and on par with taking a cholesterol-lowering statin medication in another.

The study analyzed whether postmenopausal women who followed the Portfolio Diet experienced fewer heart disease events. The study included 123,330 women in the U.S. who participated in the Women's Health Initiative, a long-term national study looking at risk factors, prevention and early detection of serious health conditions in postmenopausal women. When the women in this analysis enrolled in the study between 1993 and 1998, they were between 50-79 years old (average age of 62) and did not have cardiovascular disease. The study group was followed until 2017 (average follow-up time of 15.3 years). Researchers used self-reported food-frequency questionnaires data to score each woman on adherence to the Portfolio Diet.

The researchers found:

• Compared to women who followed the Portfolio Diet less frequently, those with the closest alignment were 11% less likely to develop any type of cardiovascular disease, 14% less likely to develop coronary heart disease and 17% less likely to develop heart failure.

• There was no association between following the Portfolio Diet more closely and the occurrence of stroke or atrial fibrillation.

"These results present an important opportunity, as there is still room for people to incorporate more cholesterol-lowering plant foods into their diets. With even greater adherence to the Portfolio dietary pattern, one would expect an association with even less cardiovascular events, perhaps as much as cholesterol-lowering medications. Still, an 11% reduction is clinically meaningful and would meet anyone's minimum threshold for a benefit. The results indicate the Portfolio Diet yields heart-health benefits," said John Sievenpiper, M.D., Ph.D., senior author of the study at St. Michael's Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto in Ontario, Canada, and associate professor of nutritional sciences and medicine at the University of Toronto.

The researchers believe the results highlight possible opportunities to lower heart disease by encouraging people to consume more foods in the Portfolio Diet.

"We also found a dose response in our study, meaning that you can start small, adding one component of the Portfolio Diet at a time, and gain more heart-health benefits as you add more components," said Andrea J. Glenn, M.Sc., R.D., lead author of the study and a doctoral student at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and in nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto.

Although the study was observational and cannot directly establish a cause-and-effect relation between diet and cardiovascular events, researchers feel it provides a most reliable estimate for the diet-heart relation to-date due to its study design (included well-validated food frequency questionnaires administered at baseline and year three in a large population of highly dedicated participants). Nevertheless, the investigators report that these findings need to be further investigated in additional populations of men or younger women.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210804123607.htm

New mothers’ sleep loss linked to accelerated aging

Too little sleep in first six months after birth can add 3 to 7 years to women’s ‘biological age,’ UCLA scientists report

August 5, 2021

Science Daily/University of California - Los Angeles

When new mothers complain that all those sleepless nights caring for their newborns are taking years off their life, they just might be right, UCLA research published this summer in the journal Sleep Health suggests.

Scientists studied 33 mothers during their pregnancies and the first year of their babies' lives, analyzing the women's DNA from blood samples to determine their "biological age," which can differ from chronological age. They found that a year after giving birth, the biological age of mothers who slept less than seven hours a night at the six-month mark was three to seven years older than those who logged seven hours or more.

Mothers who slept less than seven hours also had shorter telomeres in their white blood cells. These small pieces of DNA at the ends of chromosomes act as protective caps, like the plastic tips on the ends of shoelaces. Shortened telomeres have been linked to a higher risk of cancers, cardiovascular and other diseases, and earlier death.

"The early months of postpartum sleep deprivation could have a lasting effect on physical health," said the study's first author, Judith Carroll, UCLA's George F. Solomon Professor of Psychobiology. "We know from a large body of research that sleeping less than seven hours a night is detrimental to health and increases the risk of age-related diseases."

While participants' nightly sleep ranged from five to nine hours, more than half were getting less than seven hours, both six months and one year after giving birth, the researchers report.

"We found that with every hour of additional sleep, the mother's biological age was younger," said Carroll, a member of the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA's Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. "I, and many other sleep scientists, consider sleep health to be just as vital to overall health as diet and exercise."

Carroll urged new mothers take advantage of opportunities to get a little extra sleep, like taking naps during the day when their baby is asleep, accepting offers of assistance from family and friends, and, when possible, asking their partner to help with the baby during the night or early morning. "Taking care of your sleep needs will help you and your baby in the long run," she said.

Co-author Christine Dunkel Schetter, a distinguished professor of psychology and psychiatry at UCLA, said the study results "and other findings on maternal postpartum mental health provide impetus for better supporting mothers of young infants so that they can get sufficient sleep -- possibly through parental leave so that both parents can bear some of the burden of care, and through programs for families and fathers."

Dunkel Schetter added that while accelerated biological aging linked to sleep loss may increase women's health risks, it doesn't automatically cause harm to their bodies. "We don't want the message to be that mothers are permanently damaged by infant care and loss of sleep," she emphasized. "We don't know if these effects are long lasting."

'This aisle is closed': Using epigenetics to determine biological age

The study used the latest scientific methods of analyzing changes in DNA to assess biological aging -- also known as epigenetic aging, Dunkel Schetter said. DNA provides the code for making proteins, which carry out many functions in the cells of our body, and epigenetics focuses on whether regions of this code are "open" or "closed."

"You can think of DNA as a grocery store," Carroll said, "with lots of basic ingredients to build a meal. If there is a spill in one aisle, it may be closed, and you can't get an item from that aisle, which might prevent you from making a recipe. When access to DNA code is 'closed,' then those genes that code for specific proteins cannot be expressed and are therefore turned off."

Because specific sites within DNA are turned on or off with aging, the process acts as a sort of clock, Carroll said, allowing scientists to estimate individuals' biological age. The greater an individual's biological, or epigenetic, age, the greater their risk of disease and earlier death.

The study's cohort -- which included women who ranged in age from 23 to 45 six months after giving birth -- is not a large representative sample of women, the authors said, and more studies are needed to better understand the long-term impact of sleep loss on new mothers, what other factors might contribute to sleep loss and whether the biological aging effects are permanent or reversible.

Carroll and Dunkel Schetter reported last year that a mother's stress prior to giving birth may accelerate her child's biological aging, which is a form of "intergenerational transfer of health risk," Dunkel Schetter said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210805115519.htm

Good toothbrushing habits in children linked to mother's wellbeing

July 28, 2021

Science Daily/Tohoku University

A mother's mental health may play a larger role in a child's toothbrushing habits than previously thought.

It is no secret that brushing your teeth twice a day is highly effective in promoting healthy teeth and gums. The International Association of Pediatric Dentistry advocates brushing with toothpaste containing fluoride to prevent decayed, missing, or filled teeth -- known as childhood dental caries (ECC) -- in children.

Parents are instrumental in instilling good dental habits in their children.

In Japan, there is a worryingly high prevalence of ECC among children aged 3 years old. Postpartum depression and/or lack of affection caused by bonding disorders hamper a mother's ability to cultivate healthy dental practices in children, and researchers were keen to explore this link.

Dr Shinobu Tsuchiya from Tohoku University Hospital led a research group that analyzed approximately 80,000 mother-infant pairs from the Ministry of Environment's Japan Environment and Children's Study.

They found children with mothers suffering from postpartum depression or bonding disorders brushed their teeth less often. Likewise, the frequency with which children brushed their teeth increased when mothers showed strong affection towards their children.

The research group hopes their research will foster greater mental support and management for mothers and that doctors will incorporate these factors when assessing children's oral health.

"A mother's psychological well-being provides valuable screening information for identifying children at a high risk of ECC," said Tsuchiya

In future studies, Tsuchiya and her team hope to examine other environmental influences on poor oral health.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210728105646.htm

Postmenopausal women can dance their way to better health

July 28, 2021

Science Daily/The North American Menopause Society (NAMS)

Women often struggle with managing their weight and other health risk factors, such as high cholesterol, once they transition through menopause. A new study suggests that dancing may effectively lower cholesterol levels, improve fitness and body composition and in the process, improve self-esteem. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).

After menopause, women are more likely to experience weight gain, overall/central body adiposity increases, and metabolic disturbances, such as increases in triglycerides and bad cholesterol. Together, these changes ultimately increase cardiovascular risk. Around this same time, women often are less physically active, which translates into reductions in lean mass and an increased risk of falls and fractures. As a result of all these changes, postmenopausal women often suffer from decreased self-image and self-esteem, which are directly related to overall mental health.

Physical activity has been shown to minimize some of the many health problems associated with menopause. The effect of dancing, specifically, has already been investigated with regard to how it improves body composition and functional fitness. Few studies, however, have investigated the effects of dance on body image, self-esteem, and physical fitness together in postmenopausal women.

This new study was designed to analyze the effects of dance practice on body composition, metabolic profile, functional fitness, and self-image/self-esteem in postmenopausal women. Although the sample size was small, the study suggested some credible benefits of a three-times-weekly dance regimen in improving not only the lipid profile and functional fitness of postmenopausal women but also self-image and self-esteem.

Dance therapy is seen as an attractive option because it is a pleasant activity with low associated costs and low risk of injury for its practitioners. Additional confirmed benefits of regular dancing include improvement in balance, postural control, gait, strength, and overall physical performance. All of these benefits may contribute to a woman's ability to maintain an independent, high-quality lifestyle throughout her lifespan.

Study results are published in the article "Dance practice modifies functional fitness, lipid profile, and self-image in postmenopausal women."

"This study highlights the feasibility of a simple intervention, such as a dance class three times weekly, for improving not only fitness and metabolic profile but also self-image and self-esteem in postmenopausal women. In addition to these benefits, women also probably enjoyed a sense of comradery from the shared experience of learning something new," says Dr. Stephanie Faubion, NAMS medical director.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210728105640.htm

Women's mental health has higher association with dietary factors

Exercise could reduce negative association of certain food and mental distress in mature women

June 9, 2021

Science Daily/Binghamton University

Women's mental health likely has a higher association with dietary factors than men's, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Lina Begdache, assistant professor of health and wellness studies at Binghamton University, had previously published research on diet and mood that suggests that a high-quality diet improves mental health. She wanted to test whether customization of diet improves mood among men and women ages 30 or older.

Along with research assistant Cara M. Patrissy, Begdache dissected the different food groups that are associated with mental distress in men and women ages 30 years and older, as well as studied the different dietary patterns in relation to exercise frequency and mental distress. The results suggest that women's mental health has a higher association with dietary factors than that of men. Mental distress and exercise frequency were associated with different dietary and lifestyle patterns, which support the concept of customizing diet and lifestyle factors to improve mental wellbeing.

"We found a general relationship between eating healthy, following healthy dietary practices, exercise and mental well-being," said Begdache. "Interestingly, we found that for unhealthy dietary patterns, the level of mental distress was higher in women than in men, which confirmed that women are more susceptible to unhealthy eating than men."

Based on this study and others, diet and exercise may be the first line of defense against mental distress in mature women, said Begdache.

"Fast food, skipping breakfast, caffeine and high-glycemic (HG) food are all associated with mental distress in mature women," said Begdache. "Fruits and dark green leafy vegetables (DGLV) are associated with mental well-being. The extra information we learned from this study is that exercise significantly reduced the negative association of HG food and fast food with mental distress," said Begadache.

This research provides the framework needed for healthcare professionals for customizing dietary plans to promote exercise and improve mental well-being in mature adults, said Begdache. It could also provide a new perspective for the research community when assessing the role of diet on mental distress.

The researchers are conducting a parallel study with young men and women, looking at diet quality in addition to sleep and seasonal change variables from a longitudinal perspective.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210609143348.htm