Background: Structural imaging studies demonstrate brain tissue abnormalities in eating disorders, yet a quantitative analysis has not been done. Methods: In global and regional meta-analyses of 9 voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies, with a total of 228 eating disorder participants (currently ill with anorexia nervosa), and 240 age-matched healthy controls, we compare brain volumes using global and regional analyses. Results: Anorexia nervosa (AN) patients have global reductions in gray (effect size = −0.66) and white matter (effect size = −0.74) and increased cerebrospinal fluid (effect size = 0.98) and have regional decreases in left hypothalamus, left inferior parietal lobe, right lentiform nucleus and right caudate, and no significant increases. No significant difference in hemispheric lateralization was found. Conclusions: Global and regional meta-analyses suggest that excessive restrained eating as found in those with anorexia nervosa coincides with structural brain changes analogous to clinical symptoms.

To examine the association between dietary habits, cognitive functioning and brain volumes in older individuals, data from 194 cognitively healthy individuals who participated in the Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors cohort were used. At age 70, participants kept diaries of their food intake for 1week. These records were used to calculate a Mediterranean diet (MeDi) score (comprising dietary habits traditionally found in Mediterranean countries, e.g. high intake of fruits and low intake of meat), with higher scores indicating more pronounced MeDi-like dietary habits. Five years later, participants' cognitive capabilities were examined by the seven minute screening (7MS) (a cognitive test battery used by clinicians to screen for dementia), and their brain volumes were measured by volumetric magnetic resonance imaging. Multivariate linear regression analyses were constructed to examine the association between the total MeDi score and cognitive functioning and brain volumes. In addition, possible associations between MeDi's eight dietary features and cognitive functioning and brain volumes were investigated. From the eight dietary features included in the MeDi score, pertaining to a low consumption of meat and meat products was linked to a better performance on the 7MS test (P=0.001) and greater total brain volume (i.e. the sum of white and gray matter, P=0.03) when controlling for potential confounders (e.g. BMI) in the analysis. Integrating all dietary features into the total MeDi score explained less variance in cognitive functioning and brain volumes than its single dietary component meat intake. These observational findings suggest that keeping to a low meat intake could prove to be an impact-driven public health policy to support healthy cognitive aging, when confirmed by longitudinal studies. Further, they suggest that the MeDi score is a construct that may mask possible associations of single MeDi features with brain health domains in elderly populations.

Background and Purpose: Studies of sleep duration in relation to specific types of stroke are scarce. Moreover, the results are inconclusive and causality remains unclear. Our objective was to investigate whether sleep duration is associated with risk of stroke and its types using observational and Mendelian randomization designs. Methods: The prospective study included 79 881 women and men (45–79 years of age) who were followed up for incident stroke or death over a mean follow-up of 14.6 years (1 164 646 person-years) through linkage to Swedish Registers. For the Mendelian randomization study, single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with sleep duration were identified from a genome-wide association study. Summarized data for genetic associations with stroke were obtained from publicly available data of the MEGASTROKE and the International Stroke Genetics Consortia. Results: Compared with normal sleep duration, long sleep (≥9 hours per day) was associated with increased risk of total and ischemic stroke (hazard ratios [95% CI], 1.12 [1.03–1.22] and 1.14 [1.03–1.24], respectively), whereas short sleep (<7 h/d) was linked to higher risk of intracerebral hemorrhage (hazard ratio [95% CI], 1.21 [1.03–1.41]). The 2-sample Mendelian randomization analysis supported no causal association of short or long sleep duration with ischemic stroke as a whole. Conclusions: In a prospective study, long sleep duration was associated with increased risk of total and ischemic stroke, whereas short sleep was linked to increased risk of intracerebral hemorrhage. However, the Mendelian randomization analysis did not show a significant detrimental effect of short or long sleep duration on the risk of total stroke or stroke types.

In the present study, we tested whether elderly with a high dietary intake of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) would have higher cognitive test scores and greater brain volume than those with low dietary intake of these fatty acids. Data were obtained from the Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors (PIVUS) cohort. The dietary intake of EPA and DHA was determined by a 7-day food protocol in 252 cognitively healthy elderly (122 females) at the age of 70 years. At age 75, participants' global cognitive function was examined, and their brain volumes were measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Three different multivariate linear regression models were applied to test our hypothesis: model A (adjusted for gender and age), model B (additionally controlled for lifestyle factors, e.g., education), and model C (further controlled for cardiometabolic factors, e.g., systolic blood pressure). We found that the self-reported 7-day dietary intake of EPA and DHA at the age of 70 years was positively associated with global gray matter volume (P < 0.05, except for model C) and increased global cognitive performance score (P < 0.05). However, no significant associations were observed between the dietary intake of EPA and DHA and global white matter, total brain volume, and regional gray matter, respectively. Further, no effects were observed when examining cognitively impaired (n = 27) elderly as separate analyses. These cross-sectional findings suggest that dietary intake of EPA and DHA may be linked to improved cognitive health in late life but must be confirmed in patient studies.

To examine associations of self-reported sleep disturbance and short sleep duration with the risk for academic failure. A cohort of ~40,000 adolescents (age range: 12-19 years) who were attending high school grades 7, 9, and 2nd year of upper secondary school in the Swedish Uppsala County were invited to participate in the Life and Health Young Survey (conducted between 2005 and 2011 in Uppsala County, Sweden). In addition to the question how many subjects they failed during the school year (outcome variable), subsamples of adolescents also answered questions related to subjective sleep disturbance (n = 20,026) and habitual sleep duration (n = 4736) (exposure variables). Binary logistic regression analysis was utilized to explore if self-reported sleep disturbances and habitual short sleep duration (defined as less than 7-8 h sleep per night) increase the relative risk to fail subjects during the school year (controlled for possible confounders, e.g. body-mass-index). Adolescents with self-reported sleep disturbances had an increased risk for academic failure (i.e., they failed at least one subject during the school year; OR: boys, 1.68; girls, 2.05, both P < 0.001), compared to adolescents without self-reported sleep disturbances. In addition, adolescents who reported short sleep duration on both working and weekend days were more likely to fail at least one subject at school than those who slept at least 7-8 h per night (OR: boys, 4.1; girls, 5.0, both P < 0.001). Our findings indicate that reports of sleep disturbance and short sleep duration are linked to academic failure in adolescents. Based on our data, causality cannot be established.