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  1. DATE: June 14, 2026 at 09:00AM
    SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

    ** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
    -------------------------------------------------

    TITLE: Common supplement may accelerate memory loss from Alzheimer’s disease

    URL: psypost.org/common-supplement-

    People with Alzheimer’s disease who took the common supplement glucosamine were 25% more likely to die within five years than those who didn’t. That’s the key finding of a new study that my colleagues and I published in the journal Nature Metabolism.

    Glucosamine is a sugar molecule that’s sold over the counter as a remedy for joint pain and arthritis. More than 40 million Americans take it each year.

    We found that glucosamine also affected people in the earliest stage of memory loss, a condition called mild cognitive impairment. People in this early stage of dementia who were taking glucosamine were 25% more likely to progress to full Alzheimer’s.

    Our analysis of patients with Alzheimer’s disease was based on anonymized medical records from the University of Florida Health system. We included 24,000 patients with dementia and 41,000 with mild cognitive impairment, comparing people who took glucosamine with those who didn’t.

    We then conducted experiments in mice engineered to have Alzheimer’s-like symptoms to identify the potential mechanism behind how glucosamine may affect the brain. We found that blocking the enzyme that makes sugars like glucosamine improved dementia symptoms in mice. In contrast, feeding those same mice glucosamine made memory loss worse. Healthy mice given the same supplement showed no effect.

    Why it matters

    The Food and Drug Administration classifies glucosamine as a dietary supplement, not a prescription drug. As a result, anyone can buy it over the counter without seeing a doctor.

    Glucosamine is an amino sugar. Composed of glucose and an amino acid called glutamine, these molecules are used by the body to build new cells. Because glucosamine is not considered an essential nutrient, glucosamine deficiency is not a recognized condition. However, people take the supplement based on anecdotal reports that it improves joint health, especially in the knees.

    For more than a decade, my team and I at the University of Florida have studied how the brain uses and processes sugar and what goes wrong with that chemistry in people who have Alzheimer’s disease.

    A lesser-known problem associated with Alzheimer’s disease is that brain cells and proteins build up extra sugar coatings. Brain cells and proteins normally carry short chains of sugar on their surface called N-glycans. These sugars guide a newly made protein into its three-dimensional shape and help it attach to other proteins it works with.

    But in people with Alzheimer’s disease, the chains pile up where they don’t belong. The proteins underneath them start to fail, leading to memory loss and cell death. This condition is called hyperglycosylation.

    Given that about 7.2 million Americans ages 65 and older live with Alzheimer’s disease, we estimated that many were also taking glucosamine for joint health. We hypothesized that this sugar amine may be contributing to cognitive decline.

    Earlier studies have linked glucosamine supplements to a lower dementia risk in cognitively healthy adults. Our findings do not contradict those reports but qualify them. While glucosamine appears safe and potentially protective for a healthy brain, it may be harmful for a brain that is already experiencing cognitive decline.

    What still isn’t known

    Since our study was based on patient records rather than a controlled experiment in people, it cannot show that glucosamine causes faster cognitive decline – only that there’s an association.

    Answering this question would require a study that randomly administers glucosamine to some patients and not to others. But if glucosamine may increase the risk of dementia, giving patients glucosamine would be unethical.

    In addition, we do not yet know whether the apparent harm glucosamine has on the brains of people with memory problems depends on the dose, the brand of the supplement, or on how long people take it. We also do not know whether this finding applies to other forms of dementia.

    What’s next

    One way to test whether glucosamine directly causes cognitive decline would be a clinical trial on patients who took glucosamine and then discontinued it. About 8% of dementia patients in our database fall into that category. We hope to follow them for several years to see whether stopping the supplement slows their cognitive decline.

    We are also screening compounds that block the N-glycan molecule and reduces the buildup of sugars on brain cells to see whether this might slow or reverse Alzheimer’s disease.

    Finally, we plan to explore whether other supplements that the body breaks down in similar ways to glucosamine carry comparable risks for brains experiencing cognitive decline.

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

    URL: psypost.org/common-supplement-

    -------------------------------------------------

    Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: clinicians-exchange.org

    Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

    -------------------------------------------------

    #psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Alzheimer'sDisease #GlucosamineRisks #MemoryLoss #MildCognitiveImpairment #N-Glycans #Hyperglycosylation #DementiaResearch #BrainHealth #AgingPopulation #SupplementSafety

  2. DATE: June 14, 2026 at 09:00AM
    SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

    ** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
    -------------------------------------------------

    TITLE: Common supplement may accelerate memory loss from Alzheimer’s disease

    URL: psypost.org/common-supplement-

    People with Alzheimer’s disease who took the common supplement glucosamine were 25% more likely to die within five years than those who didn’t. That’s the key finding of a new study that my colleagues and I published in the journal Nature Metabolism.

    Glucosamine is a sugar molecule that’s sold over the counter as a remedy for joint pain and arthritis. More than 40 million Americans take it each year.

    We found that glucosamine also affected people in the earliest stage of memory loss, a condition called mild cognitive impairment. People in this early stage of dementia who were taking glucosamine were 25% more likely to progress to full Alzheimer’s.

    Our analysis of patients with Alzheimer’s disease was based on anonymized medical records from the University of Florida Health system. We included 24,000 patients with dementia and 41,000 with mild cognitive impairment, comparing people who took glucosamine with those who didn’t.

    We then conducted experiments in mice engineered to have Alzheimer’s-like symptoms to identify the potential mechanism behind how glucosamine may affect the brain. We found that blocking the enzyme that makes sugars like glucosamine improved dementia symptoms in mice. In contrast, feeding those same mice glucosamine made memory loss worse. Healthy mice given the same supplement showed no effect.

    Why it matters

    The Food and Drug Administration classifies glucosamine as a dietary supplement, not a prescription drug. As a result, anyone can buy it over the counter without seeing a doctor.

    Glucosamine is an amino sugar. Composed of glucose and an amino acid called glutamine, these molecules are used by the body to build new cells. Because glucosamine is not considered an essential nutrient, glucosamine deficiency is not a recognized condition. However, people take the supplement based on anecdotal reports that it improves joint health, especially in the knees.

    For more than a decade, my team and I at the University of Florida have studied how the brain uses and processes sugar and what goes wrong with that chemistry in people who have Alzheimer’s disease.

    A lesser-known problem associated with Alzheimer’s disease is that brain cells and proteins build up extra sugar coatings. Brain cells and proteins normally carry short chains of sugar on their surface called N-glycans. These sugars guide a newly made protein into its three-dimensional shape and help it attach to other proteins it works with.

    But in people with Alzheimer’s disease, the chains pile up where they don’t belong. The proteins underneath them start to fail, leading to memory loss and cell death. This condition is called hyperglycosylation.

    Given that about 7.2 million Americans ages 65 and older live with Alzheimer’s disease, we estimated that many were also taking glucosamine for joint health. We hypothesized that this sugar amine may be contributing to cognitive decline.

    Earlier studies have linked glucosamine supplements to a lower dementia risk in cognitively healthy adults. Our findings do not contradict those reports but qualify them. While glucosamine appears safe and potentially protective for a healthy brain, it may be harmful for a brain that is already experiencing cognitive decline.

    What still isn’t known

    Since our study was based on patient records rather than a controlled experiment in people, it cannot show that glucosamine causes faster cognitive decline – only that there’s an association.

    Answering this question would require a study that randomly administers glucosamine to some patients and not to others. But if glucosamine may increase the risk of dementia, giving patients glucosamine would be unethical.

    In addition, we do not yet know whether the apparent harm glucosamine has on the brains of people with memory problems depends on the dose, the brand of the supplement, or on how long people take it. We also do not know whether this finding applies to other forms of dementia.

    What’s next

    One way to test whether glucosamine directly causes cognitive decline would be a clinical trial on patients who took glucosamine and then discontinued it. About 8% of dementia patients in our database fall into that category. We hope to follow them for several years to see whether stopping the supplement slows their cognitive decline.

    We are also screening compounds that block the N-glycan molecule and reduces the buildup of sugars on brain cells to see whether this might slow or reverse Alzheimer’s disease.

    Finally, we plan to explore whether other supplements that the body breaks down in similar ways to glucosamine carry comparable risks for brains experiencing cognitive decline.

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

    URL: psypost.org/common-supplement-

    -------------------------------------------------

    Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: clinicians-exchange.org

    Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot

    -------------------------------------------------

    #psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Alzheimer'sDisease #GlucosamineRisks #MemoryLoss #MildCognitiveImpairment #N-Glycans #Hyperglycosylation #DementiaResearch #BrainHealth #AgingPopulation #SupplementSafety

  3. Japan’s Population Shrinks at Record Pace, Census Shows

    The Japanese government has released preliminary figures from the 2025 national census, showing that as of October 1 last year, Japan’s total population, including foreign residents, stood at 123.05 million…
    #Japan #JP #JapanNews #agingpopulation #agingsociety #birthrate #Depopulation #Japanese #Japanesenews #news #Population #populationdecline #society
    alojapan.com/1493320/japans-po

  4. alojapan.com/1493320/japans-po Japan’s Population Shrinks at Record Pace, Census Shows #AgingPopulation #AgingSociety #BirthRate #Depopulation #Japan #JapanNews #Japanese #JapaneseNews #news #Population #PopulationDecline #society The Japanese government has released preliminary figures from the 2025 national census, showing that as of October 1 last year, Japan’s total population, including foreign residents, stood at 123.05 million. This is a decrease of 3.097 mill

  5. @vbe404 I've been actively advocating for FOSS tools since at least 2017 that allow local data aggregation of personal health data. No one seems interested in this topic. It's shocking. Even now, with the push for data sovereignty in the EU, I see almost no talk on this topic. We need tools to help us maintain our health. Society is getting older so its only going to be more necessary. #foss #personalhealth #agingpopulation #datasovereignty #HealthyAging

  6. @vbe404 I've been actively advocating for FOSS tools since at least 2017 that allow local data aggregation of personal health data. No one seems interested in this topic. It's shocking. Even now, with the push for data sovereignty in the EU, I see almost no talk on this topic. We need tools to help us maintain our health. Society is getting older so its only going to be more necessary. #foss #personalhealth #agingpopulation #datasovereignty #HealthyAging

  7. Some sober reading for a Monday morning:

    "Fertility is falling everywhere, in rich countries with low fertility rates and poor countries where it is comparatively high. Two-thirds of the global population lives in countries where fertility is below the replacement rate."

    #Population #Future #AgingPopulation
    eduardoelreportero.substack.co

  8. Some sober reading for a Monday morning:

    "Fertility is falling everywhere, in rich countries with low fertility rates and poor countries where it is comparatively high. Two-thirds of the global population lives in countries where fertility is below the replacement rate."

    #Population #Future #AgingPopulation
    eduardoelreportero.substack.co

  9. THE EXTENDED SHIFT: RETIREMENT'S FRAYING PROMISE

    Millions of Americans over 65 are working longer because they can't afford to retire. Many need money for bills and medication. Some also like working for social reasons.

    #RetirementCrisis, #OlderWorkers, #FinancialHardship, #WorkforceTrends, #AgingPopulation

    newsletter.tf/older-americans-

  10. Nice to see a video about the #AgingPopulation crisis that actually talks about how #immigration can provide a boost of younger people to more developed countries if they could just overcome their stupid racism and bigotry.

    youtu.be/AultJcNb90c?t=1354

  11. Nice to see a video about the #AgingPopulation crisis that actually talks about how #immigration can provide a boost of younger people to more developed countries if they could just overcome their stupid racism and bigotry.

    youtu.be/AultJcNb90c?t=1354

  12. alojapan.com/1450925/hidden-wo Hidden Wonders | A Village with Japan’s Lowest Population Density #aging #AgingPopulation #Depopulation #FukushimaPrefecture #FukushimaPrefectures #HiddenWonders #HiddenWondersOfJapan #HinoemataVillage #Japan #JapanNews #JapaneseVillage #news #Population #village このページを 日本語 で読む Located at the southwestern tip of Fukushima Prefecture and bordering Niigata, Gunma, and Tochigi, Hinoemata Village is known as Japan’s least densely populated

  13. A recently released report by Office of the Seniors Advocate, British Columbia, found that "the number of people waiting for publicly-funded long-term care (LTC) in B.C. has gone up more than 200 per cent since 2016".

    And, as the number of LTC beds have increased by a mere 5% over the past decade, the number of senior citizens have increased by 19%.

    CanAge, an advocacy organization for seniors, was more blunt:

    "What we've seen is that the B.C. government has been turning its eyes away from the reality of the aging population in British Columbia ... and in comparison to Ontario, for instance, it's decades behind."

    The long LTC bed waitlist has led seniors to desperate situations, including occupying hospital emergency rooms and leaning on family caregivers to get by. Result to come: generational problems in terms of poverty.

    #BCpoli #AgingPopulation

    cbc.ca/news/canada/british-col

  14. A recently released report by Office of the Seniors Advocate, British Columbia, found that "the number of people waiting for publicly-funded long-term care (LTC) in B.C. has gone up more than 200 per cent since 2016".

    And, as the number of LTC beds have increased by a mere 5% over the past decade, the number of senior citizens have increased by 19%.

    CanAge, an advocacy organization for seniors, was more blunt:

    "What we've seen is that the B.C. government has been turning its eyes away from the reality of the aging population in British Columbia ... and in comparison to Ontario, for instance, it's decades behind."

    The long LTC bed waitlist has led seniors to desperate situations, including occupying hospital emergency rooms and leaning on family caregivers to get by. Result to come: generational problems in terms of poverty.

    #BCpoli #AgingPopulation

    cbc.ca/news/canada/british-col

  15. Why it may get even harder to find caregivers for America’s aging – The Washington Post

    Jonas Atta-Kyereme, left, is a caregiver for David Reese, 85, a retired pediatrician who lives at Goodwin House Alexandria, one of Goodwin Living’s senior living facilities in Virginia. (Maxine Wallace / The Washington Post)

    The business of caring for older Americans is in a deepening crisis

    Government funding cuts, caregiver shortages and immigration limits are adding new strains to an industry that’s already hard-pressed to meet demand.

    Today at 5:00 a.m. EST, 12 min

    By Shannon Najmabadi

    Shannon is reporting on aging in America. Are you caring for an aging family member? Planning or paying for long-term care? Have an tip or noticed a trend? Please contact [email protected].

    Jonas Atta-Kyereme helps 85-year-old David Reese dress in the morning and prepare for bed at night. He makes sure the retired pediatrician takes his medicine, and calms him when he gets anxious looking for his wife,Jane, who died last year.

    It’s a typical shift for Atta-Kyereme, a caregiver who began working in Reese’s home after the older man sustained a traumatic brain injury during a fall last year.

    “He needed 24-7 care,” said Reese’s brother-in-law George Sullivan. “He didn’t even recognize his own home that he’d lived in for 50 years.”

    Home health workers and caregivers like Atta-Kyereme, who immigrated from Ghana two years ago, fill a critical role in the health care ecosystem as America ages and demand for caregivers soars.But government funding cuts, a caregiver shortage and immigration limits are layering new strains on an industry already hard-pressed to meet demand: Home health and personal care openings are projected to jump 17 percent from 2024 to 2034, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and home health spending is expected to nearly double,to $317 billion, in 2033.

    Atta-Kyereme and his wife were both teachers in Ghana before immigrating to the U.S., enrolling in certified nursing assistant programs and becoming home health aides, he said. (Maxine Wallace / The Washington Post)

    Costs are fast increasing: Spending on at-home elder care shot up 7 percent from August to September, the largest monthly increase on record, according to government data. Nursing home costs rose 4 percent from September 2024 to September 2025, while home health care surged 12 percent, far exceeding the 3 percent overall rise in inflation during that time.

    The U.S. elder care industry is caught between competing forces as demand swells: Many families say they would prefer in-home care but can’t afford it. Yet the industry struggles to attract people willing to take on the intimate, labor-intensive work of caregiving, largely because of the low pay. For a home health or personal care aide, the median salary was $34,900 annually or $16.78 an hour. Nurses and other medically trained staff who also attend to seniors at home earn more.

    Even retail and restaurant jobs can offer better compensation, said Jake Krilovich, chief executive of the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts. When his state passed a $15 minimum wage, “we saw a lot of the workforce migrate as a result of that.”

    The tension is rapidly coming to the fore as changes in immigration policy threaten to squeeze the workforce. While foreign-born workers make up 19 percent of the U.S. labor force, they accounted for about 1 in 3 home care workers in 2023, according to a KFF analysis.

    After the U.S. ramped up immigration enforcement under its Secure Communities policy, the home care workforce shrank 7.5 percent between 2008 and 2013, according to a 2025 study by professors at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pennsylvania. The data also showed that older adults in need of assistance were 5 percent less likely to get home care.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: Why it may get even harder to find caregivers for America’s aging – The Washington Post

    #AgingPopulation #AmericaSAging #CareGiving #CaregiverShortages #Caregivers #CaregivingBusiness #GovernmentFundingCuts #HelpingSeniors #HomeHealthCare #HomeNursing #ImmigrationLimits #PersonalCare #TheWashingtonPost

  16. The Insulin Pen Market in Japan, 2025-2033

    Company Logo The market faces challenges such as high costs of sophisticated devices and rural preference for traditional methods, but opportunities exist in urban centers like Tokyo and industrial hubs such as Aichi Japanese Insulin Pen Market Japanese I…
    #Japan #JP #JapanNews #agingpopulation #InsulinPen #Insulinpens #insulintherapy #Japanese #Japanesenews #marketgrowth #news
    alojapan.com/1406240/the-insul

  17. alojapan.com/1406240/the-insul The Insulin Pen Market in Japan, 2025-2033 #AgingPopulation #InsulinPen #InsulinPens #InsulinTherapy #Japan #JapanNews #Japanese #JapaneseNews #MarketGrowth #news Company Logo The market faces challenges such as high costs of sophisticated devices and rural preference for traditional methods, but opportunities exist in urban centers like Tokyo and industrial hubs such as Aichi Japanese Insulin Pen Market Japanese Insulin Pen Market Dublin, No