Lifestyle Behaviors and Cognitive Status in a Community Sample of Older Adults

Lifestyle behaviors have been associated with better cognitive status and reduced risk of dementia. However, only individual or combinations of a few lifestyle behaviors have been studied. The present study examines the association between lifestyle behaviors and cognitive status in older adults including six lifestyle behaviors: cognitive activities, social activities, physical activities, religious involvement, diet, and alcohol consumption. The study population is a sample of 1,216 community-dwelling men and women age 65 years and older from Cache County, Utah. The present study is conducted using the extant data from the Cache County Study on Memory Health and Aging (CCSMHA), a prospective longitudinal study, which has been ongoing since 1995 with its focus on Alzheimer\u27s disease and other forms of dementia. Data related to lifestyle behaviors, cognitive status, and dementia diagnosis in the third study wave were analyzed for the purpose of the present study. Three lifestyle patterns were identified based on the six lifestyle behaviors: the least engaged, the moderately engaged secular, and the most engaged religious. The most engaged religious pattern represented a healthy lifestyle on all lifestyle domains with exception to almost no use of alcohol. The moderately engaged secular pattern represented a moderately healthy lifestyle on all domains with least engagement in religious behavior. The least engaged pattern showed an unhealthy lifestyle on all domains with moderate engagement in religious behavior. The results showed that participants in the least engaged had a lower cognitive status and higher rate of being diagnosed with cognitive impairment or dementia compared to those with other two lifestyle patterns. The findings suggest that engaging in healthy lifestyle behaviors in later life might protect from or delay loss of cognitive ability and dementia risk

Fluorine in the Solar Neighborhood : The Need for Several Cosmic Sources

The cosmic origin of fluorine is still not well constrained. Several nucleosynthetic channels at different phases of stellar evolution have been suggested, but these must be constrained by observations. For this, the fluorine abundance trend with metallicity spanning a wide range is required. Our aim is to determine stellar abundances of fluorine for. We determine the abundances from HF lines in infrared K-band spectra (∼ 2.3,&mu m) of cool giants, observed with the IGRINS and Phoenix high-resolution spectrographs. We derive accurate stellar parameters for all our observed K giants, which is important as the HF lines are very temperature-sensitive. We find that [F/Fe] is flat as a function of metallicity at [F/Fe]∼0, but increases as the metallicity increases. The fluorine slope shows a clear secondary behavior in this metallicity range. We also find that the [F/Ce] ratio is relatively flat for, and that for two metal-poor (), s-process element-enhanced giants, we do not detect an elevated fluorine abundance. We interpret all of these observational constraints as indications that several major processes are at play for the cosmic budget of fluorine over time: from those in massive stars at low metallicities, through the asymptotic giant branch star contribution at, to processes with increasing yields with metallicity at supersolar metallicities. The origins of the latter, and whether or not Wolf-Rayet stars and/or novae could contribute at supersolar metallicities, is currently not known. To quantify these observational results, theoretical modeling is required. More observations in the metal-poor region are required to clarify the processes there

Physical activity and depressive symptoms in older adults

ObjectivesDepressive symptoms are prevalent in older adults, and physical activity (PA) may have beneficial effects on depression. The purpose of this study was to explore the association between physical activity and depressive symptoms, taking into account demographic factors, and the associations between selected demographic factors and physical activity levels in community-dwelling older adults (age ≥ 60 years).MethodsData were drawn from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005-2006. Descriptive statistics and logistic models were used in data analysis.ResultsFour percent of participants reported moderate depressive symptoms, and 24% of subjects exhibited sedentary PA. Factors associated with increased risk of moderate depression included age, sedentary PA, and chronic medical conditions (ps < 0.05). Sedentary PA was significantly associated with age, race, education, BMI, smoking status, alcohol use, and taking psychotropics (ps < 0.05).DiscussionPA is a protective factor for depression in older adults, and clinical implications to encourage PA are discussed