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Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#51

Post by joduplessis »

username135 wrote: post #45
joduplessis wrote: post #38

Don't try to be healthy, try to be strong or try to do an ultra - or even crossfit. Community & nutrition usually follow IMO.

Hard disagree with this. The number one reason I see people fail their diet/exercise goals is because they go to big to fast. Training to do an ultra marathon if youve never run a 5k, swam a mile in open water, or even mountain biked for 5 miles is a sure fire way to get injured. You need to build a base of knowledge, muscle, and nutritional habits or you set yourself up for failure, imo. Not a hard rule, but close.…

> because they go to big to fast.

I didn't say anything about doing it fast. Prepping for an ultra is a long term thing.

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#52

Post by joduplessis »

mr90210 wrote: post #44
joduplessis wrote: post #38

Don't try to be healthy, try to be strong or try to do an ultra - or even crossfit. Community & nutrition usually follow IMO.

Are you related to Dricus du Plessis? Also, ultras will overwork the shit out of your heart. (Bro science)

Lol, no - unfortunately not Bismarck either. :) It's a common Afrikaans/SA surname.

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#53

Post by ekianjo »

robinhouston wrote: post #48

> Schott also notes that the clinical trial didn’t include a control group of participants who got no guidance and made no lifestyle changes. This makes it hard for researchers to pinpoint which aspect of the program might have been responsible for the positive effect. However, Heather M. Snyder, senior vice president for medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association, tells the New York Times that t…

> neglecting to offer an intervention to one group would be unethical.

i read that as "doing Science would be unethical"

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#54

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

joduplessis wrote: post #49
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe start with a 5k rather than an ultra? I think that setting goals like "do an ultra" is more likely to have people stop entirely rather than downgrading their goal to something more doable when they hit that first roadblock. Better to start small and catch the running bug than try to do something that the vast majority of the population will never even aspire to.

I was of course generalizing, but the point I'm making is that you need to get some (very) long term fitness goals. This usually drives you to find like minded people and action long term nutritional changes. You can get to a 5km within 5 weeks.

> You can get to a 5km within 5 weeks.

You have to remember that something like 40% of Americans are obese.

You're right, a 5k is pretty doable, but if you get to 5k and you don't find yourself enjoying it, you're never going to get to an ultra, but if you do find yourself enjoying it, it's much easier to work your way up to a 10k. And there's a lot of points between 5k and ultra where the game changes - a 10k feels different and has a different challenge than a half which feels different than a full (I can't speak for an ultra), and many of those points are perfectly healthy to stall at.

Long term goals are great, but only once you've set yourself on that path. The goal of running for a month and a half is enough if you've never run before.

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#55

Post by idontwantthis »

UltraSane wrote: post #34
sys32768 wrote: post #19

My mother had Alzheimer's for 20 years. I would not recommend it for more than 10 years no matter how healthy you are. I have one copy of the APOE4 gene and am ~40lbs overweight and probably drink too much, and will definitely double my weight and triple my alcohol consumption if I get it. I have always said the heathier you are when you begin to die, the longer it takes to die.

Weight loss is much easier if you eat foods with low calories per gram.

Are you a bot? Why did you say that?

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#56

Post by throwforfeds »

doppelgunner wrote: post #6

Great, so my brain isn't a doomed potato after all. Just need to sleep, exercise, eat well, socialize, reduce stress, stop doomscrolling, learn a language, play chess, meditate, avoid sugar, limit screen time, and reverse the entropy of the universe. Easy.

Honestly, these all start to happen naturally when you start dedicating yourself to doing something first thing in the morning. I spent my 20s smoking cigarettes, drinking as much as I wanted, eating whatever. Then after a pretty intense LSD trip I decided to re-dedicate myself to a daily meditation practice. No excuses, just every morning wake up and sit for 20 minutes.

The first thing you realize is that your sessions are a lot more fruitful when you don't show up to your morning practice hung over, or on 5 hours of sleep, or after a night of chain smoking. After that practice was established for a year, I started working out. And then you realize your training is better when you're feeding your body correctly, so your diet changes. Etc. They all flow into and out of each other, as they're all essentially the same practice.

The important thing I've found is when you want to begin a new habit, put it first thing in the morning. No excuses. Actually, this reminds me of something I read in an interview with David Bowie years ago -- when asked what he learned to appreciate as he got older his answer was just "mornings".

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#57

Post by antonvs »

doppelgunner wrote: post #6

Great, so my brain isn't a doomed potato after all. Just need to sleep, exercise, eat well, socialize, reduce stress, stop doomscrolling, learn a language, play chess, meditate, avoid sugar, limit screen time, and reverse the entropy of the universe. Easy.

> reverse the entropy of the universe.

INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#58

Post by dillydogg »

ekianjo wrote: post #53
robinhouston wrote: post #48

> Schott also notes that the clinical trial didn’t include a control group of participants who got no guidance and made no lifestyle changes. This makes it hard for researchers to pinpoint which aspect of the program might have been responsible for the positive effect. However, Heather M. Snyder, senior vice president for medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association, tells the New York Times that t…

> neglecting to offer an intervention to one group would be unethical. i read that as "doing Science would be unethical"

Good luck ever doing a clinical trial with this approach. Think about cancer treatment. If we have an intervention we know is better than the natural course of the cancer, then we ought to compare the experimental treatment with the default treatment instead of letting people die from cancer in the name of "science".

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#59

Post by jimbokun »

doppelgunner wrote: post #6

Great, so my brain isn't a doomed potato after all. Just need to sleep, exercise, eat well, socialize, reduce stress, stop doomscrolling, learn a language, play chess, meditate, avoid sugar, limit screen time, and reverse the entropy of the universe. Easy.

Excluding the last one, those are all things that will probably make you happier day to day, too.

Re: Cognitive decline can be slowed down with lifestyle changes

#60

Post by ocschwar »

robinhouston wrote: post #48

> Schott also notes that the clinical trial didn’t include a control group of participants who got no guidance and made no lifestyle changes. This makes it hard for researchers to pinpoint which aspect of the program might have been responsible for the positive effect. However, Heather M. Snyder, senior vice president for medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association, tells the New York Times that t…

If you have access to statistics for the general population, you can forego the control group, I would think. But that requires doing the study in a country with a well run health care system and properly regulated medical records so that you can get these stats without privacy issues.

(Glances in Denmark's general direction.. )

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