A National Institute on Aging study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found nicotinamide riboside (NR) prevented neurological damage and improved cognitive and physical function in a new mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, reports the National Institutes of Health . The researchers developed a strain of mice mimicking major features of human Alzheimer's including tau pathology, failing synapses, neuronal death, and cognitive impairment. They then tested the impact of an NR supplement by adding it to the drinking water of the mice. Over three months, the team determined mice who received NR exhibited reduced tau in their brains, while amyloid-beta was unchanged. The NR-treated animals also had less DNA damage, higher neuroplasticity, more production of new neurons from neuronal stem cells, and reduced levels of neuronal damage and death. In the hippocampus, NR appeared to either clear existing DNA damage or prevent its further spread. In addition, the NR-treated mice performed better than controls on multiple behavioral and memory tests, such as water mazes and object recognition. They also had better muscular and grip strength, higher endurance, and improved gait versus the controls. The researchers think these improvements were caused by a rejuvenating effect NR had on stem cells in both muscle and brain tissue.

A University of Florida (UF) study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease found 23 percent of adults age 60 and older who got a total knee replacement had a decline in activity in at least one region of the brain responsible for specific cognitive functions, reports News-Medical . The team performed cognitive and brain imaging tests before and after surgery on 48 persons undergoing knee replacement. Resting state functional magnetic resonance imagery was used to study patterns of blood flow in the brain while subjects were lying still. Fifteen percent of subjects showed declines across all brain networks the team evaluated. "In essence, normally synchronized parts of the brain appeared more out of sync after surgery," says UF Professor Jared Tanner. Subjects who exhibited greater cognitive weakness before surgery exhibited the most network declines following the procedure. "We strongly believe clinicians need to consider preoperative memory and attention abilities in their patients," says UF Professor Catherine Price. "Across the nation, however, cognition is not routinely assessed prior to surgery."

Two new Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rules designed to curb the financial abuse of seniors and vulnerable adults and enact national standards to protect senior investors went into effect on Feb. 5, reports Think Advisor . FINRA member firms must now make "reasonable efforts" to obtain the name of and contact information for a trusted contact person for a customer's account. In addition, firms can impose a temporary freeze on a disbursement of funds or securities when there is a reasonable belief of financial exploitation, and alert the trusted contact of the temporary hold. "These important changes, developed in collaboration with our members, provide firms with tools to respond more quickly and effectively to protect seniors and vulnerable investors from financial exploitation," says FINRA Chief Legal Officer Robert Colby. "With the aging of the U.S. population, financial exploitation is a serious and growing problem, and protecting senior investors remains a top priority for FINRA." The Consumer Federation of America's Barbara Roper says financial professionals "can play a crucial role in detecting and preventing exploitation of vulnerable seniors, and these rules can help by making brokers more confident of their ability to act without repercussions." She notes her organization prefers the North American Securities Administrators Association's model act, "which includes a requirement to report any misuse to regulators and other relevant officials."

Some companies are allowing employees to define corporate philanthropy, with one example being General Mills Foundation, which set up an "employee-centered strategy" for giving back, reports Forbes . "We had never approached employees before to ask them how they wanted to engage; we had designed programs for them and invited them to engage," says General Mills Foundation Executive Director Mary Jane Melendez. "But we turned the tables and said, 'What do you want? How do we deliver what you want? Let's design something with you and for you. Not for you and without you.'" The foundation's strategy to evolve the organization's approach included getting informed employee viewpoints before designing anything, a willingness to disrupt the status quo, and intentionally engaging employees in a way that drives value for the business. The grassroots design strategy was employee-centric, with Melendez engaging with more than 1,000 employees over four months in 24 countries. "You have to have the employees' voices at the table before you're designing anything," Melendez stresses. Among the differing perspectives she found similar thinking and prepared to move forward through those differences, even if it meant changing foundational strategy and what the C-suite traditionally valued. The final step involved committing to maintain the employee's voice at the table to make and sustain the changes. "What is so incredibly powerful is that employees are bringing a skill and expertise that no one else can bring forward in that area," Melendez says.

David K. Kim with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) wrote recommendations published in the Annals of Internal Medicine advising changes on use of herpes zoster vaccine and use of an additional measles mumps rubella (MMR) dose for older adults, reports MedPage Today . Kim said the ACIP updated the standards of adult immunization practice "to promote the integration of vaccinations as a part of routine clinical care for adults." The implication is that healthcare providers should evaluate an individual's vaccination status at every clinical encounter, "strongly recommend" needed vaccines to individuals, offer vaccines recommended to individuals, and document vaccines administered in the state or local immunization information system. Changes to the 2018 immunization schedule include two doses of recombinant zoster vaccine, two to six months apart to adults 50 or older, regardless of past episodes of herpes zoster or administration of zoster vaccine live; and two doses of recombinant zoster vaccine two to six months apart to adults who received zoster vaccine live, at least two months afterwards. Also recommended is a third dose of a "mumps-containing vaccine" for persons who had previously received two doses of "mumps-containing vaccine" and are "identified to public health authorities as being part of a group at risk for acquiring mumps because of an outbreak." Furthermore, adults lacking evidence of immunity to mumps are "routinely recommended" to get one MMR dose.

At the most recent meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), vaccine researcher Stanley Plotkin recommended the committee consider issuing preferential recommendations for influenza vaccines that appear to have performance advantages over the competition, reports STAT . However, flu experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claim they do not have the authority to signal a preference for some vaccines, due to a lack of evidence that the vaccines people believe are more protective really are. Next week the CDC is expected to publish interim estimates of how well the flu vaccine is working this year, but those studies are too small to assess how each individual brand of vaccine performed. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota has urged increasing the sample size to extract detailed efficacy information. The CDC's Dan Jernigan notes companies may eventually decide they want to perform studies themselves to show their vaccines are more protective, and said Sanofi did this with a high-dose vaccine it wanted to focus on adults 65 and older. Some experts warn if the CDC's preferential recommendation is not evidence-based, the advice could be misguided.

A study published in Nature Medicine details how damage to cells called pericytes can induce white matter disease associated with dementia, and the findings suggest these brain changes may happen as early as the age of 40, reports Medical News Today . The University of Southern California's Berislav Zlokovic notes white matter disease is common in older adults, and research has connected it to cerebral small vessel disease, which "contributes to almost 50 percent of dementia cases worldwide, including Alzheimer's disease." In the first stage of the study, the researchers conducted a postmortem analysis of the brains of people who had Alzheimer's, comparing them to the brains of healthy adults. The brains of people with Alzheimer's had half the number of pericytes as healthy brains, and levels of the protein called fibrinogen were three times higher in white matter regions. The team found 12- to 16-week-old mice with pericyte deficiency had levels of fibrinogen about 10 times higher in the corpus callosum, while at 36 to 48 weeks old the mice exhibited a 50 percent increase in blood vessel leakage. The team evaluated the mice's running speed, and pericyte-deficient mice ran 50 percent slower than control mice when they were 12 to 16 weeks old. "The mice deficient in pericytes function slower because there are structural changes in their white matter and a loss of connectivity among neurons," Zlokovic says. The researchers think these results may suggest fibrinogen as a target for preventing this dementia precursor.

A study published in Scientific Reports suggests drinking the equivalent of about 2.5 alcoholic drinks daily could reduce brain inflammation, as well as boost the function of the glymphatic system, which governs the cleansing of waste products from the brain, reports Medical News Today . The researchers determined when mice were exposed to high doses of alcohol over a prolonged period, there was an increase in inflammatory markers observed in the astrocyte cells that help control glymphatic function. Mice that were given "low" doses of alcohol — which was the equivalent of consuming around 2.5 alcohol beverages a day — showed not only a reduction in brain inflammation, but improvement in their glymphatic function, compared with a control group that was not exposed to alcohol. "The data on the effects of alcohol on the glymphatic system seemingly matches the J-shaped model relating to the dose effects of alcohol on general health and mortality, whereby low doses of alcohol are beneficial, while excessive consumption is detrimental to overall health," says the University of Rochester Medical Center's Dr. Maiken Nedergaard.

Journalist Shiho Fukada details in several videos how the Japanese are experimenting with technology to help citizens live longer and healthier, reports STAT . Japan has one of oldest populations in the world, with 27.3 percent of their citizens at least 65 years old. The World Health Organization estimates Japan's average life expectancy in 2015 was the highest in the world, at 83.7 years. One of Fukada's videos shows how Tokyo therapist Kenta Toshima has traveled the world to capture footage of foreign lands that his senior patients can experience via virtual reality.

A study from researchers at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, in collaboration with the Faas Foundation, focused on the levels of engagement and burnout in more than 1,000 U.S. employees, reports the Harvard Business Review . Although two out of five polled employees reported high engagement and low burnout, one in five reported both high engagement and high burnout. This second group showed desirable behaviors such as high skill acquisition, but also reported the highest turnover intentions in the sample. The implication is that companies may risk losing some of their most motivated and hard-working employees not for a lack of engagement, but because of their concurrent experiences of high stress and burnout symptoms. Half the optimally engaged employees reported having high resources, such as supervisor support, rewards and recognition, and self-effectiveness at work, but low demands such as low workload, low cumbersome bureaucracy, and low to moderate demands on concentration and attention. Meanwhile, experiences of high resources and low demands were rare among the engaged-exhausted employees, most of whom reported experiencing high demands and high resources. It is therefore essential to provide employees with the resources they require to do their job well, feel good about their work, and recover from work stressors. The research suggests company wellness initiatives are not the chief way to respond to employee stress, and instead HR should work with front-line managers to track the level of demands they are imposing on people, along with the balance between demands and resources.