Is brain training worth it? And a liquid biopsy for blood cancer

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Health Report 28 min 2 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 6 hours ago

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What is the prevalence of undiagnosed high‑genetic‑risk cancer in Australia?

Dr. Norman Swan 0:00

Hello and welcome to this week's health report with me, Norman Swan. Today, there are eighty thousand Australians who have an easily diagnosed, high genetic risk of cancer. They don't know it, and we need to do something about it.

Ian Frayling 0:12

The little light comes on in your car with the oil light, your airbass will scream at you if you try to land with the wheels up and your phone will tell you when it's your anniversary tomorrow and it's a life and death, right? So we have to use technology simply to find these things and tell people what to do when they need to do it.

Dr. Norman Swan 0:26

A world first for Australian research, a simple blood test, a so-called liquid biopsy for cancer, which saves having more expensive, painful, and less accurate tests. How lung problems in women are different, and doctors need to know about it, not to mention women, and how you may not need to pay a fortune for brain training programs to keep your mind fit. Some simple, cheap activities may be all you need, at least according to our large study, which has found a reduce incidence of what's called mild cognitive impairment, which can be the first step for some people towards dementia. The lead author was Jonas Geda of the Mayo Clinic in the United States.

Jonas Geda 1:02

Several groups of investigators, including ourselves, have reported a cross sectional association between mentally stimulating activities And decreased odds of having mild cognitive impairment.

Dr. Norman Swan 1:19

And when you say cross sectional, this means like a snapshot. If you just if you just take a snapshot in time, people who are doing mentally stimulating activities seem to have better thinking and memory ability. But it doesn't tell you whether or not it's cause and effect.

Jonas Geda 1:32

Exactly.

Dr. Norman Swan 1:33

So they could be doing these mentally stimulating activities because they can rather than because it's helping them.

Jonas Geda 1:38

Exactly. So what we did is we published a cross sectional study We looked at about ten mentally stimulating activities We observed that five of them are strongly associated with decreased odds of having MCI. So we took those five activities.

Dr. Norman Swan 1:54

MCI being mild cognitive impairment.

Jonas Geda 1:57

Intermediate stage between normal aging and dementia. So we took those five mentally stimulating activities.

Dr. Norman Swan 2:04

Oh where are they?

Jonas Geda 2:05

Reading books. Playing games, when we say games, simple games, board games. craft activities such as knitting, computer use simple email browsing and social activities. So we took these five And we tested it in a prospective cohort study. We took about two thousand people, seventy years and older.

Dr. Norman Swan 2:29

I just watched and see what happened to them.

Jonas Geda 2:32

Exactly. And followed them forward in time for an average of about four years. And then we wanted to see At baseline, all of them are cognitively normal. And then followed the forward in time. and then try to compare the outcome of mild cognitive impairment. between those who engage in mentally stimulating activities versus those who don't.

Dr. Norman Swan 2:56

And what did you find?

Which simple, low‑cost activities can lower the risk of mild cognitive impairment?

Jonas Geda 2:57

Mentally stimulating activities, particularly craft activities. Computer use. Social activities and playing games were associated with decreased risk of having mild cognitive impairment.

Dr. Norman Swan 3:14

So this is the group as a whole. And in fact when I look at your results, computer use really stood out. The significance was much greater than the other activities.

Jonas Geda 3:22

Exactly. Computer use is top on the list and again we asked only simple computer use, email, browsing, that's it.

Dr. Norman Swan 3:30

And the social activities were what?

Jonas Geda 3:32

Doing group activities, going to theaters or or going to a museum or group activities such as Bible studying.

Dr. Norman Swan 3:40

Okay, so then you decided to look at it by genetic risk using this gene called Apo E four which does confer an increased risk of cognitive impairment.

Jonas Geda 3:49

Particularly Alzheimer's. So we wanted to know if I am a carrier of the genetic risk. And if I still engage in reading books I will have slightly decreased risk of having MCI even if I have genetic risk. even if I have this genetic risk, these mentally stimulating activities seem to confer some degree of decreased risk for MCI as well. So what

Dr. Norman Swan 4:16

you're saying is then that these five activities, well particularly craft activities, computer use and social activities, those will protect you to some extent if you're carrying this high risk gene.