When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?

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When Did You Last Have a Cognitive Health Check-Up?

Regular health check-ups are an important part of a good health regime, especially as we get older. But after you’ve been prodded, probed, sampled and so forth… When did you last have a cognitive health check-up?

Keeping on top of things

In our recent Monday Research Review main feature about citicoline, we noted that it has beneficial effects for a lot of measures of cognitive health.

And that brought us to realize: just how on top of this are we?

Your writer here today could tell you what her sleep was like on any night in the past year, what her heart rate was like, her weight, and all that. Moods too! There’s an app for that. But cognitive health? My last IQ test was in 2001, and I forget when my last memory test was.

It’s important to know how we’re doing, or else how to we know if there has been some decline? We’ve talked previously about the benefits of brain-training of various kinds to improve cognition, so in some parts we’ll draw on the same resources today, but this time the focus is on getting quick measurements that we can retest regularly (mark the calendar!)

Some quick-fire tests

These tests are all free, quick, and accessible. Some of them will try to upsell you on other (i.e. paid) services; we leave that to your own discretion, but the things we’ll be using today are free.

Test your verbal memory

This one’s a random word list generator. It defaults to 12 words, but you can change that if you like. Memorize the words, and then test yourself by seeing how many you can write down from memory. If it gets too easy, crank up the numbers.

Click here to try it now

Test your visual memory

This one’s a series of images; the test is to click to say whether you’ve seen this exact image previously in the series or not.

Click here to try it now

Test your IQ

This one’s intended to be general purpose intelligence; in reality, IQ tests have their flaws too, but it’s not a bad metric to keep track of. Just don’t get too hung up on the outcome, and remember, your only competition is yourself!

Click here to try it now

Test your attention / focus

This writer opened this and this three other attention tests (to get you the best one) before getting distracted, noting the irony, and finally taking the test. Hopefully you can do better!

Click here to try it now

Test your creativity

This one’s a random object generator. Give yourself a set period of time (per your preference, but make a note of the time you allow yourself, so that you can use the same time period when you retest yourself at a later date) in which to list as many different possible uses for the item.

Click here to try it now

Test your musical sense

This one’s a pitch recognition test. So, with the caveat that it is partially testing your hearing as well as your cognition, it’s a good one to take and regularly retest in any case.

Click here to try it now

How often should you retest?

There’s not really any “should” here, but to offer some advice:

  • If you take them too often, you might find you get bored of doing so and stop, essentially burning out.
  • If you don’t take them regularly, you may forget, lose this list of tests, etc.
  • Likely a good “sweet spot” is quarterly or six-monthly, but there’s nothing wrong with testing annually either.

It’s all about the big picture, after all.

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  • Nori vs Wakame – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing nori to wakame, we picked the nori.

    Why?

    It was close, and both of these seaweed options are great!

    In terms of macros, nori has more protein while wakame has more carbs; they’re about equal on fiber. While the difference in protein and carbs isn’t big, out of the two we’ll prioritize protein, and thus say nori gets a notional win here—but as it’s so close, one could just as easily call it a tie.

    In the category of vitamins both are very rich in many minerals, but nori has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, B12*, and C, while wakame has more of vitamins B5, B9, K, and choline. Thus, a 6:4 victory for nori.

    *Yes, nori is one of those rare vegan foods that naturally contain vitamin B12; it’s because of the composition of the algae that this seaweed is made of, which includes some beneficial B12-making bacteria. Meanwhile, wakame is “just” a kelp, so it doesn’t have B12.

    When it comes to minerals, nori has more potassium and zinc, while wakame has more calcium and magnesium. They’re equal on other minerals, except: it’s worth noting that wakame is moderately high in sodium, while nori has very little sodium. So, either a tie-breaking win for nori, or just a tie.

    Adding up the sections gives nori the overall win; it’s only the margin of the win that’s reasonably debatable. Still, enjoy either or both; diversity is good!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Enjoy!

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  • If You’re Poor, Fertility Treatment Can Be Out of Reach

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Mary Delgado’s first pregnancy went according to plan, but when she tried to get pregnant again seven years later, nothing happened. After 10 months, Delgado, now 34, and her partner, Joaquin Rodriguez, went to see an OB-GYN. Tests showed she had endometriosis, which was interfering with conception. Delgado’s only option, the doctor said, was in vitro fertilization.

    “When she told me that, she broke me inside,” Delgado said, “because I knew it was so expensive.”

    Delgado, who lives in New York City, is enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income and disabled people. The roughly $20,000 price tag for a round of IVF would be a financial stretch for lots of people, but for someone on Medicaid — for which the maximum annual income for a two-person household in New York is just over $26,000 — the treatment can be unattainable.

    Expansions of work-based insurance plans to cover fertility treatments, including free egg freezing and unlimited IVF cycles, are often touted by large companies as a boon for their employees. But people with lower incomes, often minorities, are more likely to be covered by Medicaid or skimpier commercial plans with no such coverage. That raises the question of whether medical assistance to create a family is only for the well-to-do or people with generous benefit packages.

    “In American health care, they don’t want the poor people to reproduce,” Delgado said. She was caring full-time for their son, who was born with a rare genetic disorder that required several surgeries before he was 5. Her partner, who works for a company that maintains the city’s yellow cabs, has an individual plan through the state insurance marketplace, but it does not include fertility coverage.

    Some medical experts whose patients have faced these issues say they can understand why people in Delgado’s situation think the system is stacked against them.

    “It feels a little like that,” said Elizabeth Ginsburg, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Harvard Medical School who is president-elect of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a research and advocacy group.

    Whether or not it’s intended, many say the inequity reflects poorly on the U.S.

    “This is really sort of standing out as a sore thumb in a nation that would like to claim that it cares for the less fortunate and it seeks to do anything it can for them,” said Eli Adashi, a professor of medical science at Brown University and former president of the Society for Reproductive Endocrinologists.

    Yet efforts to add coverage for fertility care to Medicaid face a lot of pushback, Ginsburg said.

    Over the years, Barbara Collura, president and CEO of the advocacy group Resolve: The National Infertility Association, has heard many explanations for why it doesn’t make sense to cover fertility treatment for Medicaid recipients. Legislators have asked, “If they can’t pay for fertility treatment, do they have any idea how much it costs to raise a child?” she said.

    “So right there, as a country we’re making judgments about who gets to have children,” Collura said.

    The legacy of the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, when states passed laws that permitted poor, nonwhite, and disabled people to be sterilized against their will, lingers as well.

    “As a reproductive justice person, I believe it’s a human right to have a child, and it’s a larger ethical issue to provide support,” said Regina Davis Moss, president and CEO of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, an advocacy group.

    But such coverage decisions — especially when the health care safety net is involved — sometimes require difficult choices, because resources are limited.

    Even if state Medicaid programs wanted to cover fertility treatment, for instance, they would have to weigh the benefit against investing in other types of care, including maternity care, said Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. “There is a recognition about the primacy and urgency of maternity care,” she said.

    Medicaid pays for about 40% of births in the United States. And since 2022, 46 states and the District of Columbia have elected to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage to 12 months, up from 60 days.

    Fertility problems are relatively common, affecting roughly 10% of women and men of childbearing age, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

    Traditionally, a couple is considered infertile if they’ve been trying to get pregnant unsuccessfully for 12 months. Last year, the ASRM broadened the definition of infertility to incorporate would-be parents beyond heterosexual couples, including people who can’t get pregnant for medical, sexual, or other reasons, as well as those who need medical interventions such as donor eggs or sperm to get pregnant.

    The World Health Organization defined infertility as a disease of the reproductive system characterized by failing to get pregnant after a year of unprotected intercourse. It terms the high cost of fertility treatment a major equity issue and has called for better policies and public financing to improve access.

    No matter how the condition is defined, private health plans often decline to cover fertility treatments because they don’t consider them “medically necessary.” Twenty states and Washington, D.C., have laws requiring health plans to provide some fertility coverage, but those laws vary greatly and apply only to companies whose plans are regulated by the state.

    In recent years, many companies have begun offering fertility treatment in a bid to recruit and retain top-notch talent. In 2023, 45% of companies with 500 or more workers covered IVF and/or drug therapy, according to the benefits consultant Mercer.

    But that doesn’t help people on Medicaid. Only two states’ Medicaid programs provide any fertility treatment: New York covers some oral ovulation-enhancing medications, and Illinois covers costs for fertility preservation, to freeze the eggs or sperm of people who need medical treatment that will likely make them infertile, such as for cancer. Several other states also are considering adding fertility preservation services.

    In Delgado’s case, Medicaid covered the tests to diagnose her endometriosis, but nothing more. She was searching the internet for fertility treatment options when she came upon a clinic group called CNY Fertility that seemed significantly less expensive than other clinics, and also offered in-house financing. Based in Syracuse, New York, the company has a handful of clinics in upstate New York cities and four other U.S. locations.

    Though Delgado and her partner had to travel more than 300 miles round trip to Albany for the procedures, the savings made it worthwhile. They were able do an entire IVF cycle, including medications, egg retrieval, genetic testing, and transferring the egg to her uterus, for $14,000. To pay for it, they took $7,000 of the cash they’d been saving to buy a home and financed the other half through the fertility clinic.

    She got pregnant on the first try, and their daughter, Emiliana, is now almost a year old.

    Delgado doesn’t resent people with more resources or better insurance coverage, but she wishes the system were more equitable.

    “I have a medical problem,” she said. “It’s not like I did IVF because I wanted to choose the gender.”

    One reason CNY is less expensive than other clinics is simply that the privately owned company chooses to charge less, said William Kiltz, its vice president of marketing and business development. Since the company’s beginning in 1997, it has become a large practice with a large volume of IVF cycles, which helps keep prices low.

    At this point, more than half its clients come from out of state, and many earn significantly less than a typical patient at another clinic. Twenty percent earn less than $50,000, and “we treat a good number who are on Medicaid,” Kiltz said.

    Now that their son, Joaquin, is settled in a good school, Delgado has started working for an agency that provides home health services. After putting in 30 hours a week for 90 days, she’ll be eligible for health insurance.

    One of the benefits: fertility coverage.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • Men have a biological clock too. Here’s what’s more likely when dads are over 50

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    We hear a lot about women’s biological clock and how age affects the chance of pregnancy.

    New research shows men’s fertility is also affected by age. When dads are over 50, the risk of pregnancy complications increases.

    Data from more than 46 million births in the United States between 2011 and 2022 compared fathers in their 30s with fathers in their 50s.

    While taking into account the age of the mother and other factors known to affect pregnancy outcomes, the researchers found every ten-year increase in paternal age was linked to more complications.

    The researchers found that compared to couples where the father was aged 30–39, for couples where the dad was in his 50s, there was a:

    • 16% increased risk of preterm birth
    • 14% increased risk of low birth weight
    • 13% increase in gestational diabetes.

    The older fathers were also twice as likely to have used assisted reproductive technology, including IVF, to conceive than their younger counterparts.

    Steven van Loy/Unsplash

    Dads are getting older

    In this US study, the mean age of all fathers increased from 30.8 years in 2011 to 32.1 years in 2022.

    In that same period, the proportion of men aged 50 years or older fathering a child increased from 1.1% to 1.3%.

    We don’t know the proportion of men over 50 years who father children in Australia, but data shows the average age of fathers has increased.

    In 1975 the median age of Australian dads was 28.6 years. This jumped to 33.7 years in 2022.

    How male age affects getting pregnant

    As we know from media reports of celebrity dads, men produce sperm from puberty throughout life and can father children well into old age.

    However, there is a noticeable decline in sperm quality from about age 40.

    Female partners of older men take longer to achieve pregnancy than those with younger partners.

    A study of the effect of male age on time to pregnancy showed women with male partners aged 45 or older were almost five times more likely to take more than a year to conceive compared to those with partners aged 25 or under. More than three quarters (76.8%) of men under the age of 25 years impregnated their female partners within six months, compared with just over half (52.9%) of men over the age of 45.

    Pooled data from ten studies showed that partners of older men are also more likely to experience miscarriage. Compared to couples where the male was aged 25 to 29 years, paternal age over 45 years increased the risk of miscarriage by 43%.

    Older men are more likely to need IVF

    Outcomes of assisted reproductive technology, such as IVF, are also influenced by the age of the male partner.

    A review of studies in couples using assisted reproductive technologies found paternal age under 40 years reduced the risk of miscarriage by about 25% compared to couples with men aged over 40.

    Having a male under 40 years also almost doubled the chance of a live birth per treatment cycle. With a man over 40, 17.6% of treatment rounds resulted in a live birth, compared to 28.4% when the male was under 40.

    How does male age affect the health outcomes of children?

    As a result of age-related changes in sperm DNA, the children of older fathers have increased risk of a number of conditions. Autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and leukaemia have been linked to the father’s advanced years.

    A review of studies assessing the impact of advanced paternal age reported that children of older fathers have increased rates of psychiatric disease and behavioural impairments.

    But while the increased risk of adverse health outcomes linked to older paternal age is real, the magnitude of the effect is modest. It’s important to remember that an increase in a very small risk is still a small risk and most children of older fathers are born healthy and develop well.

    Improving your health can improve your fertility

    In addition to the effects of older age, some chronic conditions that affect fertility and reproductive outcomes become more common as men get older. They include obesity and diabetes which affect sperm quality by lowering testosterone levels.

    While we can’t change our age, some lifestyle factors that increase the risk of pregnancy complications and reduce fertility, can be tackled. They include:

    Get the facts about the male biological clock

    Research shows men want children as much as women do. And most men want at least two children.

    Yet most men lack knowledge about the limitations of female and male fertility and overestimate the chance of getting pregnant, with and without assisted reproductive technologies.

    We need better public education, starting at school, to improve awareness of the impact of male and female age on reproductive outcomes and help people have healthy babies.

    For men wanting to improve their chance of conceiving, the government-funded sites Healthy Male and Your Fertility are a good place to start. These offer evidence-based and accessible information about reproductive health, and tips to improve your reproductive health and give your children the best start in life.

    Karin Hammarberg, Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related Posts

  • Self-Care That’s Not Just Self-Indulgence
  • Make Your Coffee Heart-Healthier!

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Health-Hack Your Coffee

    We have previously written about the general health considerations (benefits and potential problems) of coffee:

    The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)

    Today, we will broadly assume that you are drinking coffee (in general, not necessarily right now, though if you are, same!) and would like to continue to do so. We also assume you’d like to do so as healthily as possible.

    Not all coffees are created equal

    If you order a coffee in France or Italy without specifying what kind, the coffee you receive will be short, dark, and handsome and without sugar. Healthwise, this is not a bad starting point. However…

    • It will usually be espresso
    • Or it may be what in N. America is called a French press (in Europe it’s just called a cafetière)

    Both of these kinds of coffee mean that cafestol, a compound found in the oily part of coffee and which is known to raise LDL (“bad” cholesterol”), stays in the drink.

    Read: Cafestol and Kahweol: A Review on Their Bioactivities and Pharmacological Properties

    Also: Cafestol extraction yield from different coffee brew mechanisms

    If you’re reading that second one and wondering what a mocha pot or a Turkish coffee is, they are these things:

    So, wonderful as they are for those of us who love strong coffee, they also produce the highest in-drink levels of cafestol. If you’d like to cut the cafestol (for example, if you are keeping an eye on your LDL), we recommend…

    The humble filter coffee

    Whether by your favorite filter coffee machine or a pour-over low-tech coffee setup of the kind you could use even without an electricity supply, the filter keeps more than just the coffee grinds out; it keeps the cafestol out too; most of it, anyway, depending on what kind of filter you use, and the grind of the coffee:

    Physical characteristics of the paper filter and low cafestol content filter coffee brews

    What about instant coffee?

    It has very little cafestol in it. It’s up to you whether that’s sufficient reason to choose it over any other form of coffee (this coffee-lover could never)

    Want to make any coffee healthier?

    This one isn’t about the cafestol, but…

    If you take l-theanine (see here for our previous main feature about l-theanine), the l-theanine acts as a moderator and modulator of the caffeine, amongst other benefits:

    The Cognitive-Enhancing Outcomes of Caffeine and L-theanine: A Systematic Review

    As to where to get that, we don’t sell it, but here’s an example product on Amazon

    Enjoy!

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  • Black Tea or Green Tea – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing black tea to green tea, we picked the black tea.

    Why?

    It was close! Ultimately we picked the black tea as the “best all-rounder”.

    Both teas are great for the health, insofar as tea in general is a) a very good way to hydrate (better absorption than plain water) and b) an excellent source of beneficial phytochemicals—mostly antioxidants of various kinds, but there’s a lot in there.

    We did a run-down previously of the relative benefits of each of four kinds of tea (black, white, green, red):

    Which Tea Is Best, By Science?

    Which concluded in its final summary:

    Black, white, green, and red teas all have their benefits, and ultimately the best one for you will probably be the one you enjoy drinking, and thus drink more of.

    If trying to choose though, we offer the following summary:

    • Black tea: best for total beneficial phytochemicals
    • White tea:best for your oral health
    • Green tea: best for your brain
    • ❤️ Red tea: best if you want naturally caffeine-free

    Enjoy!

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  • Young Forever – by Dr. Mark Hyman

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    A lot of work on the topic of aging looks at dealing with symptoms of aging, rather than the causes. And, that’s worthy too! Those symptoms often do need addressing. But this book is about treating the causes.

    Dr. Hyman outlines:

    • How and why we age
    • The root causes of aging
    • The ten hallmarks of aging

    From there, we go on to learn about the foundations of longevity, and balancing our seven core biological systems:

    1. Nutrition, digestion, and the microbiome
    2. Immune and inflammatory system
    3. Cellular energy
    4. Biotransformation and elimination/detoxification*
    5. Hormones, neurotransmitters, and other signalling molecules
    6. Circulation and lymphatic flow
    7. Structural health, from muscle and bones to cells and tissues

    *This isn’t about celery juice fasts and the like; this talking about the work your kidneys, liver, and other organs do

    The book goes on to detail how, precisely, with practical actionable advices, to optimize and take care of each of those systems.

    All in all: if you want a great foundational understanding of aging and how to slow it to increase your healthy lifespan, this is a very respectable option.

    Click here to get your copy of “Young Forever” from Amazon today!

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