Active Social Life Helps Keep Aging Mind Sharp

(HealthDay News) -- People who keep up active social lives as they age may be doing their brain a favor, a new study finds.

Being socially active may increase feelings of self-worth and emotional validation that could end up helping maintain memory, researchers say. Social interaction may also present older minds with new challenges, keeping the brain more agile.

"We assessed social integration by marital status, volunteer activities and frequency of contact with children and neighbors," explained lead researcher Karen Ertel, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Society, Human Development and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.

Her team found that "people who were most socially integrated had memory decline of less than half the rate compared with those who were the least socially integrated," Ertel said.

The report is published in the May 29 online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

In the study, Ertel's team collected data on almost 17,000 Americans, 50 and older, who participated in the Health and Retirement Study. To test memory, the researchers had participants memorize a list of 10 words. Over six years, researchers tested recall of the word list to assess any decline in immediate and delayed recall.

Average memory scores declined from 11 in 1998 to 10 in 2004, the researchers reported. People who were more socially engaged at the start of the study had a slower decline in memory, compared with people who were more socially isolated, the researchers found.

According to Ertel, the findings indicate that "social activity may help preserve cognitive functioning in the elderly. In addition, people who are socially active may also have other healthful behaviors, which may be related to cognition and better physical health."

In another study in the same issue of the journal, Finnish researchers reported that elderly people are more likely to be institutionalized following the death of a spouse.

"We found that the risk of entering long-term institutional care was higher among older adults who had lost their spouse than among those living with their spouse," said lead researcher Elina Nihtila, from the department of sociology at the University of Helsinki.

Moreover, the excess risk of institutionalization was highest during the first month after the spouse's death, Nihtila said. "The risk was more than three times among both men and women, and decreased with time from bereavement, stabilizing at approximately 20 percent to 50 percent higher over one to five years," she said.

Fortunately, a large proportion of surviving spouses are likely to recover from partner loss, and feelings of despair and anxiety typically do diminish over time, Nihtila said. This "emotional recovery could explain why the very large excess risk of entering institutional care among those recently bereaved dropped with time from the spouse's death," she said.

The study involved data on almost 141,000 people 65 and older living with a spouse. During five years of follow-up, the risk of being institutionalized rose immediately after the death of a spouse, the researchers found.

There could be various explanations for these findings, Nihtila said, including a "loss of social and instrumental support, in the form of care and help with daily activities such as help in cooking, cleaning, and shopping formerly shared with the deceased spouse."

In addition, grief and spousal loss may cause various symptoms, such as depression and anxiety, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, fatigue and loss of concentration, Nihtila noted. "Furthermore, grief may cause increased susceptibility to physical diseases that could also increase the need for institutional care," she said.

Home help services targeted to the bereaved immediately after a spouse's death might help ease the strain, Nihtila said.

One expert said the studies highlight the problem of growing social isolation among the elderly.

"There is nothing like being face-to-face with someone," said Colin Milner, CEO of the Vancouver-based International Council on Active Aging. "But I think we are manufacturing that [contact] out of our lifestyle and that will have a long term detrimental effect on the mental health of the population," he said.

More outreach to older people, especially when a spouse dies, will be key, Milner said. "There should be programs when a spouse dies to help them get back into the swing of life," he said.

More information
For more on healthy aging, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Air Pollution Linked to Blood Clots in Legs

(HealthDay News) -- Long-term exposure to the tiny, dirty particles in polluted air seems to increase the risk of deep vein thrombosis, which are blood clots in the thighs or legs, an Italian study finds.

"It is well-established that air pollution causes myocardial infarction [heart attack] and stroke," said Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, who led the study while at the Harvard School of Public Health. "This is the first time that anyone has connected air pollution with deep vein thrombosis."

Previous studies have suggested such a connection, said Baccarelli, who is now an assistant professor of environmental health at the University of Milan. "Several studies in animal models and in humans have shown that particulate matter, inhaled into the lungs, causes inflammation in the lungs," he said. "The inflammation can expand the cell body, so that the incidence of coagulation is increased."

Coagulation is the formation of clots that can block blood vessels.

Baccarelli and his colleagues assessed the effect of air polluted with particulate matter smaller than 10 micrometers in diameter -- about one-40th the width of a human hair. Such particles come from the exhaust of vehicles, especially those with diesel engines, and burning of fossil fuels, the researchers said.

The scientists compared the exposure to such pollution on 870 residents of the Lombardy region of Italy who had been diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis, and 1,210 residents who did not have deep vein thrombosis. The researchers used the average concentration of particulate matter measured by monitors at 53 sites.

Compensating for other environmental and health factors, the researchers found that the risk of deep vein thrombosis increased by 70 percent for every increase in particulate matter of 10 micrograms per square meter. Tests showed that the blood of people more exposed to such pollution took less time to form clots.

"This makes a very strong case that air pollution is connected to deep vein thrombosis," said Dr. Robert D. Brook, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal.

"But it is a first study and a single study," he added, "and I would be cautious about making generalizations and drawing conclusions on the basis of one study."

Still, "the results are very positive," Brook said. "Even if they are overestimating the effect, the effect, which is relatively so robust, is there. But how strong it is requires further studies."

"If future studies corroborate their findings and address some of the limitations, it may be proven that the actual totality of the health burden posed by air pollution, already known to be tremendous, may be even greater than anticipated," Brook said.

Baccarelli agreed with Brook's assessment, saying, "clearly the finding needs to be confirmed in additional studies."

"We are working on that," he said. "We are seeking additional populations in which the same link between air pollution and deep vein thrombosis can be evaluated. We also hope that some of our colleagues elsewhere will be pushed to conduct other studies."

The findings are published in the May 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

More information
Learn more about the health risks of air pollution from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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