Weight Up, Cognition Down

Cognitive decline with age is a normal process. Our brains simply don't function as effectively as they did in our youth. But in otherwise normal healthy adults, the changes are gradual and subtle.

The best way to slow cognitive decline is to adhere to a few basic behaviors: Get plenty of sleep. Handle stress. Interact socially. Learn new things. Exercise. Eat well.

A new study out of the University of Georgia underscores the importance of those last two items. Researchers followed more than 8,200 people over the age of 50 for 24 years. They found that for every unit increase in body mass index, there was a more rapid decline in brain health.

BMI is a screening tool that estimates total body fat based on the ratio of your height to your weight. You can easily find BMI calculators online.

The researchers found that higher BMI over time led to more rapid declines in cognitive functions, memory and executive functioning -- managing emotions, organizing and planning tasks, concentrating and more -- than what is typically seen in aging adults.

The good news: They also found that people who managed their weight could significantly lower their rate of cognitive decline in just two years.

Body of Knowledge

The average person sheds approximately 121 pints of tears in a lifetime or in one Lifetime movie. Eyeball lubrication is more continuous and less discrete than tears, generating 5 to 10 ounces of liquid daily, primarily to keep the eyes hydrated.

Counts

57: Percentage of doctors surveyed who believe mis- and disinformation hinder their ability to deliver quality patient care

9 in 10: Ratio who say the situation has worsened over past five years

6 in 10: Ratio who report their patients have been influenced by false health claims in past year (Source: The Physicians Foundation 2025 survey)

Doc Talk

Capillary refill: When a fingernail is pressed, the nail bed turns white. Capillary refill refers to the return of blood to the nail bed, giving it a pinkish color. A good "cap refill time" is 2 seconds or less.

Mania of the Week

Leukomania: An obsession with the color white

Life in Big Macs

One hour of light baking burns approximately 170 calories (based on a 150-pound person), the equivalent of 0.2 Big Macs. One hour of eating McDonald's baked apple pies at a rate of one every 10 minutes translates to 2,300 calories.

Best Medicine

First guy: "I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy tomorrow."

Second guy: "Oh man, I hear the prep is the worst part."

First guy: "No, they've improved it. All I have to do is consume four large cans of alphabet soup."

Second guy: "What does that do?"

First guy: "It produces a huge vowel movement."

Observation

"People say money is not the key to happiness, but I have always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made." -- Comedian Joan Rivers (1933-2014)

Medical History

This week in 1955, the first U.S. report was made of the separation of a virus into component parts. This work was performed on the tobacco virus, which could then be reconstructed from those parts to produce a material as capable of causing disease as the intact virus.

The scientists demonstrated that tobacco mosaic virus spontaneously formed when mixtures of purified coat protein and its genomic RNA were incubated together.

TMV is an agricultural threat to plants but does not infect or replicate in humans or other mammals.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously and even harder to ignore.

In 2000, the Ig Nobel Prize in chemistry went to a trio of researchers at the University of Pisa in Italy and their colleague at the University of California, San Diego, for their discovery that, biochemically speaking, romantic love may be indistinguishable from having severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Self-Exam

Q: Why does your heart never tire of beating (about 100,000 times every 24 hours)?

A: The heart is a muscle made of cardiomyocytes -- cells that have 10 times the density of mitochondria (commonly known as "the powerhouse of the cell") compared to other cells. This allows the heart to keep pumping without getting fatigued.

Last Words

"I want the world to be filled with white fluffy duckies." -- English artist/writer/filmmaker Derek Jarman (1942-1994)

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To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.