Health bites

Work out now and continue to reap the benefits later. A new study in the United States has found that having a higher fitness level in midlife appears to be associated with a lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia in later years. 

Between 1970 and 2009, researchers at a community health clinic carried out an exercise treadmill test to assess the baseline fitness levels of 19,458 non-elderly, community-dwelling adults who were in generally good health. The researchers reviewed date from Medicare, the US national health insurance programme, for the patients who became eligible to receive benefits between January 1, 1999, and December 31, 2009. They found that patients who were physically fit earlier in life were much less likely to develop dementia than those who were less fit.
 

Many experimental drugs work very well in rodents but fail miserably when tested in people - but this may change in the near future. Scientists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles have genetically engineered mice that possess an immune response system more like a human's.