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The Olive Oil Hunter News #141

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

T. J.’s Super Smoothie Recipe, Spotlight on Flaxseeds and Strawberries, The Useful Mini Grinder, and When the Daily Grind Takes a Toll

How can you take a basic smoothie and super-power it? By adding high nutrient ingredients that taste great, too — it doesn’t take any extra time yet can really boost the quality of these oh-so-easy breakfast drinks. Read on and you’ll find out why strawberries should be one of your go-to fruits—fascinating research that could put them on a par with blueberries and raspberries. Plus a reminder of why it’s so vital for body and soul to find satisfaction in your work.

T. J.’s Super Smoothie

  • T. J.’s Super Chocolate Banana Strawberry Smoothie T. J.’s Super Smoothie

    There’s no faster breakfast (or snack) prep than a smoothie. While you might be tempted to pick one up at a drive-thru or favorite coffee haunt, when you make it yourself you can enhance puréed fruits to boost their healthful benefits. My recipe is loaded with protein, thanks to the yogurt, and healthy fats from EVOO of course, but also from fiber-rich flaxseed. I love the frosty taste of a smoothie made with frozen fruit, but you do need some liquid to get it started in a conventional blender — that’s where your milk preference comes in. Drink up!

    Ingredients

    • 1/2 cup dairy or non-dairy milk 
    • 1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt 
    • 1 banana or 4 ounces frozen banana slices
    • 1/2 cup frozen strawberries or mixed berries
    • 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 
    • 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
    • Optional: stevia or your preferred sweetener, to taste

    Directions

    Fill your blender with the ingredients in the order given and process on high until the frozen fruit chunks are almost completely broken down. Taste and add your choice of sweetener if desired.

    Yields 2 small servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Burrata

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Flaxseeds

These tiny seeds have been garnering a lot of attention in recent years and for good reason. Derived from the flax plant, they’re loaded with both soluble and insoluble fiber for good digestive health, alpha-linolenic acid or ALA (an omega 3-fatty acid), and phytonutrients called lignans. Lignans are plant-based estrogens that appear to help lower high cholesterol and the risk for heart disease, osteoporosis, breast cancer, and some symptoms of menopause.

Bags of toasted golden or brown flaxseeds are available at many markets and online merchants such as nuts.com and vitacost.com. While ground flaxseed (often called flax meal) is available, whole seeds are likely to retain more nutrients and you can grind them as needed.

Grinding flaxseeds before eating them is essential — when whole, the seeds will pass right out of your body undigested. To best preserve their nutrients, grind only what you need each day, and store any extra in a jar in the fridge. Aim for a tablespoon or two a day: blend it into smoothies and pancake or waffle batter, sprinkle over yogurt or cereal, and add to recipes including baked goods. Ground flaxseeds also make a great swap for breadcrumbs.

Quick Kitchen Nugget: Rinsing Lettuce

Quick Kitchen Nugget

A Great Addition to Your Appliance Garage

An under-appreciated kitchen workhouse is the mini grinder, often called a coffee bean grinder or sometimes a spice grinder. It’s perfect for grinding flaxseeds, whole spices like cumin and black peppercorns, and nuts, turning small amounts into meal. 

For the easiest clean-up, look for a grinder with a removable bowl, like the Cuisinart Electric Spice and Nut Grinder. However, less expensive fixed bowl models, like the one from Krups, can be wiped out with paper towels (first a damp one, then a dry one).  

For Your Best Health: Imperfect calorie counting may be good enough

For Your Best Health

The Power of Strawberries 

According to UNLV School of Integrated Health Sciences associate professor Arpita Basu, PhD, RD/LD, strawberries pack a serious punch when it comes to health benefits. She has been studying their ability to help reduce the risks of diabetes and improve overall metabolic and cardiovascular health for over a decade.

“A key takeaway from our strawberry studies is a marked improvement in blood total and LDL cholesterol among participants. And better numbers in these areas are shown to reduce the possible risk of heart attack and stroke,” she says. “I’m quite passionate about the concept of food as medicine…It’s gratifying when working with patients and research study participants to give them something natural – instead of medication – to lower their risk of diabetes.” Thinking of food as a form of medicine incentivizes people to eat better, she adds.

What makes strawberries so healthy? Any fruits with a deep color are typically good for you, but the darker the color, the greater amount of health benefits. “This is especially true for strawberries because they are all red in color. All that red comes from different plant pigments. Some people use red wine as another common example, but berries have less sugar content than grapes,” Dr. Basu explains. 

She also points out that you don’t need to consume a pound of strawberries each day to see a difference. Her studies of 8-week and 12-week trials with participants who had high LDL cholesterol and features of metabolic syndrome found that two-and-a-half servings of strawberries each day looked to be very beneficial in improving insulin resistance and lowering diabetes risk. Dr. Basu plans on continuing her research with larger groups of adults with pre-diabetes to assess the benefits of strawberries for them. It bears repeating that almost all berries have powerful plant-based nutrients. Her study on the effectiveness of blueberries for women with gestational diabetes also found improvements in their blood glucose levels.

Fitness Flash: Exercise: Exercising to Burn Fat

Fitness Flash

When the Daily Grind Takes a Toll

A recent study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a peer-reviewed American Heart Association journal, found that job strain combined with high effort and low reward doubled men’s heart disease risk. The three psychosocial stressors are each associated with heart disease risk, and the combination is especially dangerous, similar to the magnitude of the impact of obesity. It’s a stark reminder of the importance of having work satisfaction. Results on how work stress affects women’s heart health were inconclusive.

The study included 3,118 male and 3,347 female white-collar workers engaged in a wide range of jobs in Quebec, Canada, including employees working in senior management and in professional, technical, and office workers roles. Education levels ranged from no high school diploma to a university degree. At the start of the study, participants had an average age of about 45 years old and were free of heart disease; they were followed from 2000 to 2018.

“Considering the significant amount of time people spend at work, understanding the relationship between work stressors and cardiovascular health is crucial for public health and workforce well-being,” says lead study author Mathilde Lavigne-Robichaud, RD, MS, doctoral candidate, of the Population Health and Optimal Health Practices Research Unit, CHU de Quebec-University Laval Research Center in Quebec, Canada. “Our study highlights the pressing need to proactively address stressful working conditions, to create healthier work environments that benefit employees and employers.

“Job strain refers to work environments where employees face a combination of high job demands and low control over their work. High demands can include a heavy workload, tight deadlines, and numerous responsibilities, while low control means the employee has little say in decision-making and how they perform their tasks,” Lavigne-Robichaud explains. “Effort-reward imbalance occurs when employees invest high effort into their work, but they perceive the rewards they receive in return — such as salary, recognition, or job security — as insufficient or unequal to the effort. For instance, if you’re always going above and beyond, but you feel like you’re not getting the credit or rewards you deserve, that’s called effort-reward imbalance.

“Our results suggest that interventions aimed at reducing stressors from the work environment could be particularly effective for men and could also have positive implications for women, as these stress factors are associated with other prevalent health issues such as depression,” Lavigne-Robichaud adds. “The study’s inability to establish a direct link between psychosocial job stressors and coronary heart disease in women signals the need for further investigation into the complex interplay of various stressors and women’s heart health.” Positive interventions might include different approaches, such as providing support resources, promoting work-life balance, enhancing communication, and empowering employees to have more control over their work, she says.

Though the research involved Canadians and the results might not fully represent the diversity of the American working population, the study findings may still be relevant to white-collar workers in the United States and other high-income countries with similar job structures, according to Lavigne-Robichaud.

“The U.S. workforce is among the most stressed in the world, and these workplace stressors can be as harmful to health as obesity and secondhand smoke,” commented Eduardo J. Sanchez, MD, MPH, chief medical officer for prevention at the American Heart Association. “This study adds to the growing body of evidence that the workplace should be prioritized as a vehicle for advancing cardiovascular health for all. The American Heart Association remains committed to and engaged in providing employers with the resources and information they need to actively support the health of their employees and communities through science-backed changes to policy and culture.”

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The Olive Oil Hunter Newsletter #140

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Asian Chicken Salad Recipe, Spotlight on Mandarins, Shopping for Asian Ingredients, Another Reason to Get Consistent Shut-Eye and Overcoming “Gymtimidation”

I love getting two meals for the effort of one—so the next time you grill chicken thighs (or steak, for that matter), throw on a couple of extra pieces and turn them into this flavorful salad (with mandarins) the next day. I’m also sharing unique research linking a lack of sleep with changes in the gut microbiome,  a body system that’s so influential in determining overall health. And, because days are getting shorter with less opportunity for outdoor fitness, you’ll find expert tips for getting over “gymtimidation,” the term for anxiety over going to the gym!

Asian Chicken Salad

  • Asian Chicken Salad Asian Chicken Salad

    Popular on restaurant menus since it was created by celebrated Los Angeles restauranteur Sylvia Wu (legend has it that she did so at the request of the superstar of his day, Cary Grant), Chinese Chicken Salad, the inspiration for this recipe, has gone through many incarnations. Instead of crispy noodles and breaded cutlets, my version relies on the rich flavors of the vinaigrette with its mix of Asian staples including garlic chili sauce and fish sauce. If you can’t find mandarins, any variety of orange will be equally delicious. (See Healthy Ingredient Spotlight in this week’s newsletter for more on this petite citrus.)

    Ingredients

    For the dressing:

    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
    • 1 tablespoon sugar
    • 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
    • 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
    • 1 teaspoon garlic chili sauce or Sriracha
    • 1 teaspoon fish sauce 

    For the salad:

    • 2 cups napa cabbage, shredded
    • 2 grilled chicken thighs, cut into thin slices
    • 2 mandarins, any variety, separated into segments
    • 2 ounces enoki mushrooms 
    • 1/2 cup chopped cilantro

    Directions

    In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients. Place the cabbage, chicken, and mandarin segments in a large serving bowl, and toss gently. Add the dressing and toss again. Top with the mushrooms and the chopped cilantro. 

    Yields 2 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Burrata

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Mandarins

With 100 cultivars available at different times throughout the year (the most of any citrus), there’s no need to rely on canned segments for Asian salads or snacking. Also called tangerines, mandarins originated in southern Asia, and many types are grown in China today as well as Japan, Spain, Brazil, and the US. You’re also likely to see exotic hybrids, like tangors (mandarin and orange) and tangelos (mandarin and grapefruit or pummelo). Clementines are a type of mandarin readily available in stores and sometimes marketed with a proprietary brand name like Cuties or Halos. Like other citrus, mandarins are a source of vitamin C, potassium, folate, and many essential phytonutrients. 

Quick Kitchen Nugget: Rinsing Lettuce

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Shopping for Asian Ingredients

With grocery chains increasing their international offerings, along with the expansion of H Mart, a supermarket-sized Asian food emporium now in 14 states, and online options ranging from Amazon to Sayweee to David Chang’s Momofuku, it’s never been easier to put together the staples needed for many wonderful Asian specialties—Vietnamese, Thai, the various cuisines of China, and more. Though each one is unique, some key items to have on hand are rice vinegar, chili garlic sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, toasted sesame oil, fish sauce, various dried chiles, black vinegar, and, of course, soy sauce. 

For Your Best Health: Imperfect calorie counting may be good enough

For Your Best Health

Another Reason to Get Consistent Shut-Eye

Studies have shown that changes to normal sleep patterns, like what happens when someone works the night shift, disrupt the body’s internal clock and can increase the risks for weight gain, heart problems, and diabetes, all of which are risks linked to changes in the composition of microbes in the gut. But our biological rhythms can even be affected by small inconsistencies in sleeping patterns, according to a new study published in the European Journal of Nutritionby researchers from King’s College London in the UK and ZOE, a personalized nutrition company. 

They found that irregular sleep patterns are associated with harmful bacteria in your gut, specifically a link between “social jet lag”—the shift in your internal body clock when your sleeping patterns change between workdays and free days—and diet quality, diet habits, inflammation, and gut microbiome composition. That’s important because the composition of gut microbes may negatively or positively affect your health by producing toxins or beneficial metabolites—because the microbiome is influenced by the food you consume, the diversity of your gut is adjustable. 

Wendy Hall, PhD, senior author and nutritional scientist at King’s College London, explains, “We know that major disruptions in sleep, such as shift work, can have a profound impact on your health. This is the first study to show that even small differences in sleep timings across the week seem to be linked to differences in gut bacterial species. Some of these associations were linked to dietary differences, but our data also indicates that other as yet unknown factors may be involved. We need intervention trials to find out whether improving sleep time consistency can lead to beneficial changes in the gut microbiome and related health outcomes.”

While studies into the association between social jet lag and metabolic risk factors have been done in populations with obesity or diabetes, participants in this research were mainly lean and healthy, with most getting more than seven hours’ sleep per night throughout the week. Researchers found that just a 90-minute difference in the timing of the midpoint of sleep—the halfway point between sleep time and wake-up time—was linked to differences in gut microbiome composition, and that having social jet lag was associated with lower overall diet quality, higher intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages, and lower intakes of fruits and nuts, which may directly influence the abundance of specific microbiota in your gut.

The research also found that three of the six microbiota species more abundant in those with social jet lag have unfavorable associations with health. These microbes are linked to poor diet quality, indicators of obesity and cardiometabolic health, and markers in the blood related to higher levels of inflammation and cardiovascular risk. “Maintaining regular sleep patterns, so when we go to bed and when we wake each day, is an easily adjustable lifestyle behavior we can all do that may impact your health via your gut microbiome for the better,” says Dr. Sarah Berry, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London.

Fitness Flash: Exercise: Exercising to Burn Fat

Fitness Flash

Overcoming “Gymtimidation”

Whether self-conscious about their appearance, concerned about their ability to keep up with others, or worried that they’ll feel awkward, there are many reasons that keep people from working out at a gym—and those reasons can exert a more powerful influence than the desire to reap all the benefits of exercise. Writing for ACE, the American Council on Exercise,Dr. Erin Nitschke, NFPT-CPT, NSCA-CPT, ACE health coach, fitness nutrition specialist, and therapeutic exercise specialist, shared her ideas to help people conquergymtimidation, a word being used to refer to anxiety over exercising in a gym, and suggests trying a few of them to see what works best for you:

  • Look for a small gym that might be less intimidating or work out at non-peak hours when it’s less crowded.

  • Go with a buddy, so you can support each other.

  • Invest in comfortable workout wear so you’ll worry less about your appearance.

  • Consider a personal trainer, via on-site or virtual instruction, to feel more confident about your form and get targeted guidance.

  • Keep a journal and celebrate your accomplishments.

Dr. Nitschke adds that it will take time to get the upper hand on gymtimidation, but as with any fitness goal, you can achieve it if you stick with it.

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #139

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Baked “Fried Zucchini” Recipe, For Your Best Health: The Benefits of Olive Oil and Alzheimer’s

It’s hard to escape all the talk about artificial intelligence (AI), and it has its proponents and its detractors, but a recent study showed how it can be a superhighway to important health advances. A group of international scientists used it to suss out which phytochemicals, specifically types of polyphenols, contribute to one of the most important benefits of olive oil: fighting Alzheimer’s disease. Though early in the game, the research is welcome news. One thing that there’s no question about is the exquisite taste of fresh-pressed olive oil (a sign of high polyphenol content), and this recipe for baked “fried zucchini” is a wonderful way to enjoy it. 

Baked “Fried Zucchini”

  • Baked Fried Zucchini Baked “Fried Zucchini”

    Traditional friend zucchini is such a popular appetizer, especially when dipped in zesty tomato sauce, but it’s almost always more breading and bland oil than a healthful way to eat your vegetables. My baked version offers all the taste you’re looking for in a way that elevates the zucs. For a quick and easy homemade sauce, see The Oil Olive Hunter Newsletter #137. 

    Ingredients

    • 2 medium zucchini, sliced into 1/8-inch rounds
    • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    • 1/3 cup whole wheat flour, more as needed
    • 2 eggs
    • 1/2 cup freshly grated Reggiano-Parmigiano cheese
    • 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
    • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
    • 1 teaspoon sea salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 

    Directions

    Step 1

    Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a rimmed sheet pan with parchment paper. Combine the zucchini slices and olive oil in a large bowl and toss to coat well.

    Step 2

    Set up three shallow bowls or pie plates. Put the flour in one, whisk the eggs in another, and in the third, stir together the cheese, panko, basil, salt, and pepper. One at a time, dust the zucchini slices with flour, dip them in the egg, then in the cheese mixture, and place them on the sheet pan. 

    Step 3

    Bake until the coating turns brown and crispy, for 40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through.  

    Yields 4 servings

Best Health: The Mediterranean Diet: Reversing Metabolic Syndrome After Heart Disease

For Your Best Health

The Benefits of Olive Oil and Alzheimer’s

The Study: “Alzheimer’s disease: using gene/protein network machine learning for molecule discovery in olive oil,” Human Genomics, July 2023.

The Summary: An international group of researchers, including scientists from Yale and Temple universities, used artificial intelligence to uncover the promising potential of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) in combating Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

EVOO’s neuroprotective effects have garnered a lot of attention in recent years. The Mediterranean diet, rich in EVOO, has been associated with a reduced risk of dementia and cognitive decline. To go the next step, this research team was able to create a unique algorithm by integrating AI, chemistry, and omics (an emerging multidisciplinary field that includes genomics and epigenomics) to identify which specific bioactive compounds in EVOO could contribute to the treatment and prevention of AD and analyze how they interact with the complex pathways involved in AD. Most interesting, they did this by comparing them to the actions of FDA-approved drugs for AD. 

The study adds to the growing evidence that the Mediterranean diet, rich in EVOO, supports brain health, mitigates dementia and cognitive decline, and can potentially provide a basis for consideration in future clinical studies to treat not only Alzheimer’s but other chronic conditions as well.

From the Abstract: “Previous studies suggest that extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) may be helpful in preventing cognitive decline. Here, we present a network machine learning method for identifying bioactive phytochemicals in EVOO with the highest potential to impact the protein network linked to the development and progression of the AD…The calibrated machine learning algorithm was used to predict the likelihood of existing drugs and known EVOO phytochemicals to be similar in action to the drugs impacting AD protein networks. These analyses identified the following ten EVOO phytochemicals with the highest likelihood of being active against AD: quercetin, genistein, luteolin, palmitoleate, stearic acid, apigenin, epicatechin, kaempferol, squalene, and daidzein (in the order from the highest to the lowest likelihood).” 

From the Study’s Results: “Our model allowed us to predict with 70.3% ± 2.6% accuracy which previously FDA-approved drugs were in phase 3 and 4 trials for AD specifically versus all other FDA-approved drugs not in AD trials. The resulting 64 models were used for scoring the EVOO phytochemicals; the probabilities of these phytochemicals predicted to be similar to the drugs in FDA phase 3 and 4 trials were then averaged to produce the final consensus prediction. EVOO phytochemicals with the highest probability of being like compounds in FDA trials were considered most likely to be biologically active.”

From the Study’s Conclusion: “It is well known that diet and lifestyle influence health. Machine learning is a novel, cost-effective way to evaluate the potential health benefits of individual EVOO phytochemicals. The present study provides an approach that brings together artificial intelligence, analytical chemistry, and omics studies to explore the interactions of phytochemicals with pathways involved in a disease state, information that can lead to the identification of novel therapeutic entities in a natural product (that contains a heterogeneous mixture of phytochemicals). The analyses identified several individual EVOO phytochemicals that have a high likelihood of interfering with AD, a few of which (e.g., quercetin, genistein) have shown promising effects on AD pathogenesis. Others (e.g., luteolin) are worthy of further in vitro and in vivo study. It is only through the conduct of such studies [that] the predictive utility of our machine learning approach [will] be validated. While the results of the present study shed light on how EVOO may help treat or prevent AD, the same approach may be applied to identify EVOO phytochemicals (or other food constituents) that treat other diseases, such as hypertension or dyslipidemia.”

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #138

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Very Vanilla Cupcakes Recipe, Spotlight on EVOO, Better Cupcake Liners, The Right Video Games for Brain Power Based on Your Age, and More Reasons to Exercise

As the saying goes, good things come in small packages, and these cupcakes are a perfect example. They’re simple to make and delicious to eat! Munch on one as you read about two new and important studies. The first is how to train your brain with video games—it all comes down to your age! And the other offers good advice for all ages: Exercise to avoid atrial fibrillation, the most common heart arrhythmia and one that greatly increases the risk for stroke.

Very Vanilla Cupcakes

  • Vanilla Cupcakes Very Vanilla Cupcakes

    These cupcakes are heady with a double dose of vanilla … in the sweet vanilla cake and the rich and creamy frosting, enhanced with just a hint of almond extract. Use a small offset spatula to mound the frosting in a cone shape, or use a pastry bag and small star tip for a fanciful effect. Either way, they’re luscious!

    Ingredients

    For the cupcakes:

    • 2 cups pastry flour 
    • 1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour 
    • 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
    • 1 teaspoon sea salt
    • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
    • 2 extra-large eggs 
    • 3/4 cup sugar 
    • 1 cup Greek yogurt 
    • 1/2 cup almond milk
    • 1 tablespoon vanilla or the seeds of a vanilla bean

    For the frosting:

    • 4 ounces mascarpone cheese, at room temperature 
    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
    • 1/4 cup milk, your choice of dairy or non-dairy
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
    • 3 cups confectioners’ sugar, more as needed

    Directions

    Step 1

    For the cupcakes: Preheat your oven to 375°F. Add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk thoroughly. Add all the wet ingredients and whisk thoroughly again until the flour is fully incorporated. Use a large ice cream scoop to fill a 12-cup muffin tin. Bake until the tip of a sharp knife inserted in two or three of cupcakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let them cool completely.

    Step 2

    While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting: In a large bowl or stand mixer, whisk together the mascarpone, olive oil, milk, and extracts until smooth. Beat in the sugar, a cup at a time, until the frosting reaches a spreadable consistency, adding more in 1/4 cup increments if needed. Chill briefly.

    Step 3

    When the cupcakes are completely cool, spread on the frosting.

    Yields 12 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Burrata

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Reach for EVOO Instead of Butter

Who doesn’t love a cupcake? And when you replace butter with extra virgin olive oil, you can indulge without the guilt. While it takes experimentation with EVOO to get the mouthfeel of butter when a recipe involves creaming it, you won’t notice the difference when melted butter is called for. And, of course, swapping olive oil anytime a vegetable oil is called for is a no-brainer!

Quick Kitchen Nugget: Rinsing Lettuce

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Cupcake Liners

Besides conserving your olive oil for recipes themselves, I like to use tall paper liners instead of coating your muffin tin cups with EVOO. Often called tulip liners because of their shape, they let you not only avoid spillovers but also mound your batter above the tin’s natural rim, so you can bake taller cupcakes (and muffins) in a regular-size pan. I also prefer tulip liners to the traditional short, fluted ones for the same reasons … and because they’re more festive. Look for those made of unbleached parchment paper.

For Your Best Health: Imperfect calorie counting may be good enough

For Your Best Health

The Right Video Games for Brain Power Vary with Your Age

As we age, our mental abilities tend to decrease, particularly the ability to remember a number of new things at once, otherwise known as our working memory—it’s thought to peak between the ages of 20 and 30. Research has shown that the way we hold information in the brain changes as we get older, and this prompted scientists at the University of York in the UK to look at whether the impacts of particular types of mental stimulation, such as gaming, also had altered effects, depending on age. The study included older and younger adults playing the same digital games that they do on their own. This resulted in a wide range of games that were tested alongside a digital experiment that required participants to memorize images while being distracted.

Fiona McNab, PhD, of York’s Department of Psychology, says: “A lot of research has focused on action games, as it is thought that reacting quickly, keeping track of targets, and so on helps attention and memory, but our new analysis shows that the action elements do not seem to offer significant benefits to younger adults. It instead seems to be the strategy elements of the games—planning and problem solving, for example—that stimulate better memory and attention in young people. We don’t see this same effect in older adults, however, and more research is needed to understand why this is. We can’t yet rule out that the strategy games played by older people are not as difficult as the games played by younger people and that the level of challenge might be important in memory improvement.”

When it came to brain boosts for adults ages 60 and over, the researchers found that those who played digital puzzle games showed the same memory abilities as people in their 20s and a greater ability to ignore irrelevant distractions, but older adults who played strategy games did not show the same improvements in memory or concentration as their younger counterparts.

Joe Cutting, PhD, of York’s Department of Computer Science, details: “Generally people have a good ability to ignore irrelevant distractions, something we call ‘encoding distraction.’ We would expect for example that a person could memorize the name of a street [while] being distracted by a child or a dog, but this ability does decline as we age. Puzzle games for older people had this surprising ability to support mental capabilities to the extent that memory and concentration levels were the same as a 20-year-old’s who had not played puzzle games.”

Older people who only played strategy games were more likely to forget elements committed to memory while being distracted whereas young people were less successful at focusing attention if they played only puzzle games.

The researchers suggest future studies look at why there is a difference between impacts of types of games depending on the age of a player and whether this is connected to how the brain stores information as people age.

The study, “Higher working memory capacity and distraction-resistance associated with strategy (not action) game playing in younger adults, but puzzle game playing in older adults,” was published in the journal Heliyon.

Fitness Flash: Exercise: Exercising to Burn Fat

Fitness Flash

More Reasons to Exercise

According to research done at the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taipei, Taiwan, and presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2023, physical fitness is linked with a lower likelihood of developing atrial fibrillation and stroke. Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disorder, affecting more than 40 million people worldwide, and having it increases the risk of stroke fivefold.  

The study included 15,450 people without atrial fibrillation who were referred for a treadmill test between 2003 and 2012. The average age was 55 years, and 59% were men. Fitness was assessed using the Bruce protocol, which asks participants to walk faster and at a steeper grade in successive three-minute stages. Fitness was calculated according to the rate of energy expenditure the participants achieved and expressed in metabolic equivalents (METs). Participants were divided into three fitness levels according to METs achieved during the treadmill test: low (less than 8.57 METs), medium (8.57 to 10.72), and high (more than 10.72).

Participants were followed for new-onset atrial fibrillation, stroke, myocardial infarction (heart attack), and death. The researchers analyzed the associations between fitness and atrial fibrillation, stroke, and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE)—a composite of stroke, myocardial infarction, and death—after adjusting for factors that could influence the associations, including age, sex, cholesterol level, kidney function, prior stroke, hypertension, and medications.

During a median of 137 months of follow-up, 515 participants (3.3%) developed atrial fibrillation. Each one MET increase on the treadmill test was associated with an 8% lower risk of atrial fibrillation, 12% lower risk of stroke, and 14% lower risk of MACE.

Says study author Dr. Shih-Hsien Sung, “This was a large study with an objective measurement of fitness and more than 11 years of follow-up. The findings indicate that keeping fit may help prevent atrial fibrillation and stroke.”

Separate research, done at UW Medicine-Kaiser Permanente, found another reason to do all you can to protect against atrial fibrillation: Having it appears to heighten dementia risk. People with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation had a 13% higher risk of developing dementia.

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