The Gary Null Show - 8-13-26

HEALTH NEWS

• Turmeric Extract CLE Improves Orientation and Attention in Middle-Aged Adults, Study Finds

• Healthy midlife habits linked to longer dementia-free years

• Industrial Chicken Farming Is Supercharging the Spread of a Dangerous Foodborne Bacterium

• How folic acid may protect a baby’s developing brain and spinal cord

• Study: Exercise Prompts Liver Enzyme That May Protect Brain Barrier

Turmeric Extract CLE Improves Orientation and Attention in Middle-Aged Adults, Study Finds

August 10 2026 (Natural News)

A 24-week clinical trial published in Frontiers in Nutrition has found that a non-curcumin turmeric extract known as CLE (curcuma longa extract) improved two cognitive functions – orientation and attention – in healthy adults aged 40 to 69.

The study tested 35 cognitive measures and reported statistically significant improvements on only two: awareness of time, place and surroundings (orientation) and the ability to focus and ignore distractions (attention). Alzheimer’s disease affects about 5.3 million Americans, making it the leading cause of dementia and the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S.

The CLE extract tested in this trial contains different compounds – turmeronols A and B and bisacurone – which have shown anti-inflammatory effects in laboratory models.

The trial enrolled 40 participants with subtle cognitive changes still considered within the normal range. They were randomly assigned to take either two CLE capsules daily or a placebo for 24 weeks. Cognitive assessments were administered at baseline, at 12 weeks, and at 24 weeks using standard screening tools and an eye-tracking platform.

After six months, participants in the CLE group scored higher on orientation compared with the placebo group, according to both an eye-tracking cognitive test and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment – Japanese version (MoCA-J). The CLE group also demonstrated better attention – the ability to focus and ignore distractions – based on the eye-tracking assessment.

Healthy midlife habits linked to longer dementia-free years

New York University Langone Health, August 6 2026 (News-Medical)

Having normal blood pressure, no diabetes, and not smoking from age 48 to 68, are associated with nearly 13 additional years on average of dementia-free life, a new study shows.

Led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the new work also found that, no matter how many risk factors they had, women lived longer without dementia than men, and that white study participants had more dementia-free years than Black participants.

The findings argue that people need to actively avert these factors in midlife as a strategy for preserving brain health for more than a decade.

The current study looked at 12,409 people with an average age of 56 who were free of dementia. Participants were assessed for three risk factors: high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking. They were then followed for an average of 26 years. Those who had no risk factors lived without developing dementia nearly 13 years longer than people with the three risk factors (30 years total after the study’s start versus 17 years).

The team also sought to determine how cardiovascular risk factors in midlife influenced dementia-free survival across demographics. Women with all three risk factors lived an average of 18.1 years from the start of tracking without developing dementia, compared to 16.6 years for male study participants. White participants with all three risk factors lived an average of 19.6 years without developing dementia, compared to 16 years for Black participants.

Industrial Chicken Farming Is Supercharging the Spread of a Dangerous Foodborne Bacterium

Oxford University, August 10, 2026 (SciTech Daily)

Commercial poultry farms now hold billions of chickens, creating a vast habitat where bacteria can move, mix and adapt. An analysis from the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research at the University of Oxford found that industrial poultry production has increased the movement of Campylobacter more than 100 times, allowing strains once associated with wild birds to circulate widely among farmed chickens.

Campylobacter is the world’s most common bacterial cause of diarrhea. Treatment is also becoming more difficult as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the ability of bacteria to withstand drugs intended to kill them, continues to rise.

Researchers analyzed nearly 2,800 Campylobacter genomes collected from chickens and wild birds in 30 countries (including the UK and USA) between 1979 and 2024. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), indicates that the global growth of chicken production has given different strains more opportunities to spread, exchange genetic material and acquire traits that support survival.

Chickens now represent about 70% of all bird biomass on Earth. The findings suggest that enormous, densely packed flocks may function as ecological ‘pathogen sponges,’ taking in bacterial strains from different sources and amplifying them.

How folic acid may protect a baby’s developing brain and spinal cord

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, August 11 2026 (Medical Xpress)

For more than 30 years, one piece of pregnancy advice has been remarkably consistent: Take folic acid. The reason is clear. Folic acid, or vitamin B9, can lower the risk of neural tube defects, serious birth defects that happen when the early structure that becomes the brain and spinal cord does not close properly. What has been much less clear is how folic acid works.

Now, researchers may have found an important part of the answer. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists discovered that folic acid appears to rely on an enzyme called ALDH1L1. That enzyme helps produce retinoic acid, a powerful developmental signal made from vitamin A.

Scientists have long known that folic acid can help prevent many of these defects. But the vitamin seems to be doing more than simply supplying nutrients.

The new research suggests that folic acid helps switch on ALDH1L1, a gene that makes the ALDH1L1 enzyme. That enzyme can then help turn a vitamin A-related molecule called retinaldehyde into retinoic acid. Retinoic acid acts like a set of instructions, telling developing cells when to grow, what to become, where to go and when to stop dividing.

Study: Exercise Prompts Liver Enzyme That May Protect Brain Barrier

University of California at San Francisco, August 10 2026 (Natural News)

Researchers at the UC San Francisco Bakar Aging Research Institute have found that exercise prompts the liver to release an enzyme that travels through the bloodstream to the brain and repairs the blood-brain barrier, according to a study published in the journal Cell.

The enzyme, called GPLD1, removes a protein called TNAP that accumulates on blood-brain barrier cells over time, the report stated.

The findings describe a direct liver-to-brain pathway that partly explains how physical activity protects the brain.

The study identified TNAP as a protein that builds up on blood-brain barrier cells over time, according to the researchers. GPLD1 acts to remove TNAP, restoring the barrier’s ability to admit nutrients and oxygen while blocking toxins, pathogens, and inflammatory molecules.

The findings suggest that consistent, moderate exercise may trigger GPLD1 release, according to the report. Activities such as walking, cycling, and yoga may support cognitive health through this liver-brain connection, the researchers said. \

 

 

 

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