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Link between inflammation and mental sluggishness shown in new study
An estimated 12M UK citizens have a chronic medical condition, and many of them report severe mental fatigue that they characterize as ‘sluggishness’ or ‘brain fog’. This condition is often as debilitating as the disease itself.
A team in the University’s Centre for Human Brain Health investigated the link between this mental fog and inflammation – the body’s response to illness. In a study published in Neuroimage[$], they show that inflammation appears to have a particular negative impact on the brain’s readiness to reach and maintain an alert state.
Dr Ali Mazaheri and Professor Jane Raymond of the University’s Centre for Human Brain Health, are the senior authors of the study. Dr Mazaheri says: “Scientists have long suspected a link between inflammation and cognition, but it is very difficult to be clear about the cause and effect. For example, people living with a medical condition or being very overweight might complain of cognitive impairment, but it’s hard to tell if that’s due to the inflammation associated with these conditions or if there are other reasons.”
“Our research has identified a specific critical process within the brain that is clearly affected when inflammation is present.”
The study focussed specifically on an area of the brain which is responsible for visual attention. A group of 20 young male volunteers took part and received a salmonella typhoid vaccine that causes temporary inflammation but has few other side effects. They were tested for cognitive responses to simple images on a computer screen a few hours after the injection so that their ability to control attention could be measured. Brain activity was measured while they performed the attention tests.
On a different day, either before or after, they received an injection with water (a placebo) and did the same attention tests. On each test day they were unaware of which injection they had received. Their inflammation state was measured by analysing blood taken on each day.
The tests used in the study assessed three separate attention processes, each involving distinct parts of the brain. These processes are: “alerting” which involves reaching and maintaining an alert state; “orienting” which involves selecting and prioritising useful sensory information; and “executive control” used to resolving what to pay attention to when available information is conflicting.
The results showed that inflammation specifically affected brain activity related to staying alert, while the other attention processes appeared unaffected by inflammation.
Journal Reference:
Leonie JT. Balter, Jos A. Bosch, Sarah Aldred, Mark T. Drayson, Jet JCS. Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Suzanne Higgs, Jane E. Raymond, Ali Mazaheri. Selective effects of acute low-grade inflammation on human visual attention[$]. NeuroImage, 2019; 202: 116098 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116098
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday November 22 2019, @07:17PM (1 child)
You are wrong. Or rather, only partially right.
Yes, a high carb diet can lead to chronic inflamation. So can arthritis. So can chronic infections. In fact, so can lots of other things.
The "chronic inflamation" becomes a separate problem, that is, to an extent, self maintaining. And there doesn't seem to be any good way to treat it. Because acute inflamation is the appropriate response to a large number of insults, from getting a splinter on up (or down). But if you have chronic inflamation, then acute inflamation reinforces it. But suppressing acute inflamation disables numerous protective measures.
AFAIK, the current best treatments are NSAIDs, like aspirin and ibuprofen. If you're overweight, losing weight helps, but you're probably already trying to do that. If you've got a chronic infection, getting it cured helps. Etc.
FWIW, I've got several reasons for having chronic inflamation, including bone spurs. And I'm on an extremely low starch and sugar diet. And yes, that helps, but it sure doesn't cure the problem.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:03AM
The whole damn thing is wrong end of the horse. Always fully evaluate thyroid FIRST -- it affects absolutely everything else, and otherwise you're treating symptoms, not causes. Brain fog, fatigue, sluggishness, malaise, weight gain, disturbances of calcium metabolism... just a few co-symptoms of hypothyroidism.
We're seeing more and more of this for a couple reasons: phytoestrogens in the diet (flaxseed, soy), and thanks to aggressive treatment of *symptoms* we're now living long enough for age-related hypothyroidism to become a widespread problem... largely manifesting as heart disease, obesitiy, dementia, and chronic fatigue, so that's what gets treated. 80% of people over age 50 have some degree of hypothyroidism at the tissue level, due to reduced conversion of T4 to T3. And it takes 10-15 years for the cumulative effects to manifest as major health issues. Fortunately, so long as it's treated before the damage is permanent, it is almost entirely reversible. Unfortunately, most doctors are unaware of these relationships, and don't read the literature, or only read in their own specialty, so all manner of well-established connections go unnoticed, and patients go untreated.
Treat the cause, not the effects.
Here's a starter kit:
http://hormonerestoration.com/files/TSHWrongtree.pdf [hormonerestoration.com]
One of the citations leads to a document with over 120 PAGES of interesting citations. Have fun.
https://hypothyroidmom.com/300-hypothyroidism-symptoms-yes-really/ [hypothyroidmom.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.