S/o to my lil sister for helping me sneak back into my house 🥺

🧠A vaccine against Alzheimer’s disease could be on the horizon after scientists carried out successful trials in animals.

Researchers were able to reverse memory loss in mice and are keen to move quickly to human trials

Thread 🧵👇
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Alzheimer’s vaccine step closer after new treatment reverses memory loss
Scientists hail successful trial on mice in which vaccine trains immune system to fight sticky amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain
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💉The vaccine trains the immune system to fight a type of sticky amyloid beta protein in the brain.

It accumulates in people with dementia, preventing communication between neurons
🔬Previous drugs to fight Alzheimer’s have also concentrated on reducing amyloid.

But they have shown little success in reducing symptoms, with some even triggering negative side effects
Now scientists have discovered that, in people with dementia, the protein folds itself into a hairpin-like structure, and becomes a much more dangerous form of amyloid.

🗣️Professor Mark Carr explained: “This structure had never been seen before in amyloid beta”
➡️The team theorised that engineering amyloid into the same hairpin shape before administering it as vaccine would spur the body into producing antibodies to fight off that specific structure
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Alzheimer’s vaccine step closer after new treatment reverses memory loss
Scientists hail successful trial on mice in which vaccine trains immune system to fight sticky amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain
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🐁When injected into mice, the vaccine triggered antibodies.

It helped to restore neuron function, increase glucose metabolism in the brain, reverse memory loss and reduce amyloid beta plaque formation
🗣️Professor Carr added: “While the science is currently still at an early stage, if these results were to be replicated in human clinical trials, then it could be transformative"
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Alzheimer’s vaccine step closer after new treatment reverses memory loss
Scientists hail successful trial on mice in which vaccine trains immune system to fight sticky amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain
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🔴 “It opens up the possibility to not only treat Alzheimer’s once symptoms are detected, but also to potentially vaccinate against the disease before symptoms appear,” Professor Carr said
📈More than 520,000 people in Britain have Alzheimer’s disease and the figure is set to rise.

Read the full story 👇
Alzheimer’s vaccine step closer after new treatment reverses memory loss
Scientists hail successful trial on mice in which vaccine trains immune system to fight sticky amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain
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🧠 Prolonged isolation during lockdown had devastating effects on our brain health.

Social isolation has been robustly proven to hasten dementia and long-term cognitive decline.

Here’s how to reverse pandemic brain ageing 🧵👇
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❌ Loneliness ages us as badly as 15 cigarettes a day, or drinking a bottle of gin, according to a study at University of California, Berkley.

A 12-year Harvard study found that the thinking skills of those who said they're “lonely” declined 20% more than those who were not

🧬 Only 25% of our ageing, both physical, and mental, is determined by our DNA. The other 75% is lifestyle and our environment.

We have a lot of choice over the latter, enabling us to rebuild our brain resilience and mitigate the effects of lockdown 🔻

🧠Prolonged daily sitting down is the enemy of brain health.

Aerobic exercise produces proteins which provoke the release of a protein called BDNF in the brain.

⚡️This generates new neurones, essentially rejuvenating the brain, a process that takes place until our 90s

Constantly varying bedtimes, unguarded excesses and irregular habits are also bad for brain health.

💤 Older people still need seven or eight hours of sleep, but you don’t need to do this all in one go.

Afternoon naps of no more than an hour are to be encouraged

The Harvard Adult Development Study found that those who had good-quality relationships were happier, healthier and had better brains in the long-term.

🗨️ Social connections are necessary as food or water

💞 Frequent sexual intercourse with a close partner can foster better memory, better verbal fluency and even better numeracy skills.

A study on male rats, put together with a receptive female, found that the number of new cells in the male rat’s brain increased massively

🥬 Three-quarters of all food in shops comes from 5 animals and 12 plants. Looking further afield is beneficial.

By increasing diversity, we resume the lifestyle of our hunter-gatherer ancestors and increase the chance that we ingest all the nutrients vital to brain health

👥Some people’s brains age faster than others mostly because of environment or lifestyle.

But these good habits can bring life-long benefits to brain health ...read more

Caitríona Daly
5:06 AM · Nov 14, 2021 · 7 tweets · 2 min read

Happy #WorldDiabetesDay day. I’ve had type one Diabetes for 24 years and a Diet Coke addiction for 22 of them. I broke the habit this year and discovered it had been having a profound effect on my health. Here’s some crazy stuff that changed when I broke the habit (a thread):

I hate to start with this but it was pretty significant : I dropped a large amount of weight in a very short space of time. I’d been told that this could happen but I never really believed it. My sugar cravings are at an all time low and desire for snacking is pretty minimum

My inflammation levels are the lowest they’ve been in 5 years. I get my bloods checked every 2 months. I also have RA so inflammation is always a problem. I could never get my CRP to drop below 15 but since giving up Diet Coke it hasn’t gone above 10.

I’d begun to have some problems with my heart over the past two years, it had all been quite scary. A lot of palpitations and some slight irregularities. And yep, you guessed it, all gone since giving up Diet Coke.

Anxiety. Has all but disappeared, I get occasional pangs but a lot of the panic that had been plaguing me for years has all but disintegrated. If I’d known 3 cans of Diet Coke a day were having that much of an influence on my mental health I would’ve kicked it a lot sooner.

Blood sugar control. I’d struggled to get my overnight blood sugars under control for the past 15 years. The doctors didn’t know what it was but mostly passed it off as cortisol levels. I know I’m a broken record at this point but once again, miraculously cured since quitting DC.

If you’re thinking about quitting please do. It took me several attempts but I finally did it. I’m incredibly relieved I did and honestly worry what could’ve happened to my physical and mental health if I had kept it up any longer. threadreaderapp ...read more

Fast food is more of a dare than a tasty treat.

guys in sweatpants let me tell you

Tulsa is “a slut” backwards. This is something a friend taught me in 6th grade because her stepmother was from Tulsa. I hope it brings you as much joy today as it brought me when I was 11.

WORST PAIN IS GETTING PLAYED BY A PERSON YOU LOWERED YOUR STANDARDS FOR ?

My thirst trap is literally just a bottle of Vitamin Water under a box held up by a stick with a string tied to it.

“The pain that you've been feeling, can't compare to the joy that's coming."

 ~Romans 8:18B