On the next Mayo Clinic Radio program, Dr. Deborah Lightner, an emeritus Mayo Clinic urologist, will discuss options for preventing and treating urinary incontinence. Also on the program, Dr. Paul Croarkin, a pediatric psychiatrist, will discuss teens and mental health. And Dr. Maria Vassilaki, an epidemiologist at Mayo Clinic, will share the latest research on how the Mediterranean diet affects brain health.

To hear the program, find an affiliate in your area.

Use the hashtag #MayoClinicRadio, and tweet your questions.

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Access archived shows or subscribe to the podcast.

Mayo Clinic Radio produces a weekly one-hour radio program highlighting health and medical information from Mayo Clinic.

The post Mayo Clinic Radio: Treatment options for female urinary incontinence appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

On the next Mayo Clinic Radio program, Dr. Deborah Lightner, an emeritus Mayo Clinic urologist, will discuss options for preventing and treating urinary incontinence. Also on the program, Dr. Paul Croarkin, a pediatric psychiatrist, will discuss teens and mental health. And Dr. Maria Vassilaki, an epidemiologist at Mayo Clinic, will share the latest research on how the Mediterranean diet affects brain health.

To hear the program, find an affiliate in your area.

Miss the show?  Here's your Mayo Clinic Radio podcast.

Use the hashtag #MayoClinicRadio, and tweet your questions.

Mayo Clinic Radio is on iHeartRadio.

Access archived shows or subscribe to the podcast.

Mayo Clinic Radio produces a weekly one-hour radio program highlighting health and medical information from Mayo Clinic.

The post Mayo Clinic Radio: Female urinary incontinence / teens and mental health / Mediterranean diet and brain health appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

Dr. Maria Vassilaki, a Mayo Clinic epidemiology researcher, explains how a Mediterranean diet full of fruits and vegetables, fish, healthy oils like olive oil, and less meat and saturated fat appears to delay signs of Alzheimer's disease and dementia in the brain.

Watch: The Mayo Clinic Minute

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"The changes that we see in our brain and are associated with Alzheimer's disease, one of them is amyloid beta, which is a protein fragment that accumulates in the brain," Dr. Vassilaki says. "We found out that the individuals that follow very close the Mediterranean diet or that they are in the higher consumption for vegetables, they were less likely to have ... a lot of amyloid beta in their brain."

Dr. Vassilaki says that, while more research is needed to figure out why, it appears people who follow the Mediterranean diet show fewer signs of Alzheimer’s developing.

But, since symptoms of Alzheimer’s don’t usually appear until later in life, Dr. Vassilaki is hopeful this research suggests that a healthier Mediterranean Diet earlier in life could help delay or prevent the onset of dementia.

"In my opinion we should not wait," she says. "We should start modifying our eating habits."

The post Mayo Clinic Minute: The diet that could improve your brain’s health appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.

For the study, 862 people with thinking problems and 1,292 with no thinking problems between the ages of 70 and 89 were followed for nearly six years. Over the course of the study, 331 of the group with MCI and 224 of the group without MCI died. Those who had either type of MCI had an 80 percent higher death rate during the study than those without MCI.  People with MCI with no memory loss had more than twice the death rate during the study than those without MCI, while people with MCI with memory loss had a 68 percent higher death rate during the study than those without MCI.

“Currently there is little information about death and the types of memory loss that affect many millions of Americans,” said study author Maria Vassilaki, M.D., Ph.D., neurologist with Mayo Clinic. “Exploring how memory may or may not be linked with the length of a person’s life has tremendous significance as the population age.”

MCI is often a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease. There are two main types of MCI. In one type, the most noticeable symptom is memory loss. In people with the other type of MCI, language, attention, decision-making and other abilities are declining, but memory is still intact.

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging and Rochester Epidemiology Project.

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About Mayo Clinic
Recognizing 150 years of serving humanity in 2014, Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit 150years.mayoclinic.org, MayoClinic.org or https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/.

MEDIA CONTACT: Duska Anastasijevic, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, Email: newsbureau@mayo.edu

The post People with Mild Cognitive Impairment May Die at Higher Rate Than People Without Condition appeared first on Mayo Clinic News Network.