81–90 of 111 posts
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I got my genes sequenced recently and it turns out I have a mutant gene that predisposes me to Alzheimers - APOE e4. it's a cholesterol shuttling gene! Very important to keep low fat, it effects your entire body.
low fat as in to not be overweight, or consume a diet that is low in fat? I don't want any of them 'zheimers
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This is a cohort study conducted over 15 years. You can't really criticize it only based on those numbers, at least not without looking at similar numbers from other cohort studies with the same length. I tend to ascribe some value to "It was published in the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal." Additional thought: Especially because it is essentially supporting the null hypothesis.
There is nothing more frustrating than doing things you are bad at, regularly, especially if you are bound to get somewhat worse as time goes on. To your point, even if that were the reason for a significant number of departures, it would not go against the conclusion.
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Wow, a rate of drop-out like that would certainly make me doubtful of the results of the study. It seems reasonably likely that people dropped-out in a fashion that would be weighted in one way or another.
Have you ever taken these sorts of tests? They are not fun. Many questions are childish. Others make you feel stupid for not getting them right. Both extremes are necessary to the study. I'm reminded of a study using the Nintendo Wii to help keep elderly people mobile. 90+% of them stopped playing immediately, within days, of the researchers leaving.
If that's the case, then the test should say this in the instructions... (It's a classic example of setting expectations, introducing objections up front..)
> This test may not feel exciting. Some questions could seem childish. Other questions could make people feel silly for marking the incorrect answer. These extremes are required for the study.
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You mean "Does the NHS often reach the front page of HN?"? .. I don't get it, why would you ask that?
Comment was about the research reaching the news section of the NHS.
(I'm tech lead for this site)
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My armchair analysis suspects that it is chemicals like cortisol will degrade the brain over time, while dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin will help preserve it. So stress and anxiety bad, exercise good.
cortisol? why not glutamate ? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity
Recently she did a memory test and nearly aced it (28/30). Since then my typically... well, clueless... neighbor has taken an interest in learning how to use stuff like her TV, stereo, talking about better ways to do things around the yard, etc.
Even with my own mother, the true benefit of puzzles is not that its exercising her brain or making her smarter, but its the confidence that goes along with being successful in these things. I think that goes a long way, even though it may be just a step above sugar pills.
For me, I play Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection (mobile) every day. I have a cycle I go through. If I'm having a bad day, a good win at Galaxies gets me back into the 'you can do this' mindset.
Chess seems to show the opposite. In particular speak with literally just about any older grandmaster and you'll invariably find their mental faculties are still in great shape. Of course there's always a correlation != causation problem that plagues all sort of social studies. This observation does not necessarily mean that becoming a grandmaster would slow mental decline. It could simply be something within the ind…
> It could simply be something within the individuals that drives them to become grandmasters that itself is what staves off the decline. Or it could just be survival bias. If your mental faculties are in decline, then you would be disinclined to continue competing in chess. I can imagine people would stop competing at that level long before they completely lost their marbles.
This is a fascinating share, if not for the results—"None of the measures of intellectual engagement was linked to the speed of decline of people's mental abilities over time"—but for the study itself. "Many people also dropped out of the study. Only 96 of the 498 people recruited took part in the last round of testing. The researchers lost touch with 13 people, while 57 people died and 332 declined to take part." Do…
This is a cohort study conducted over 15 years. You can't really criticize it only based on those numbers, at least not without looking at similar numbers from other cohort studies with the same length. I tend to ascribe some value to "It was published in the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal." Additional thought: Especially because it is essentially supporting the null hypothesis.
You absolutely can.
Scientific studies should be judged on their potential to produce interesting results. This study has too small a sample size to provide results that merit making even the weakest claims about. Even the initial sample size was, frankly, just barely large enough to maybe provide suggestions for future research.
If a meaningful drop-out rate is expected, I would argue that the researchers running these sorts of studies are mostly wasting everyone's time and money for the sake of publishing a few papers.
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low fat as in to not be overweight, or consume a diet that is low in fat? I don't want any of them 'zheimers
tangent: low-fat diets don't actually help with weight loss