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Washington, Feb 12: People who are optimistic may contribute to the health of their partners, staving off the risk factors leading to Alzheimer's disease, dementia and cognitive decline as they grow old together, according to a study.

The research, published in the Journal of Personality, followed nearly 4,500 heterosexual couples from the US Health and Retirement Study for up to eight years.

The researchers found a potential link between being married to an optimistic person and preventing the onset of cognitive decline, due to a healthier environment at home.

"We spend a lot of time with our partners.They might encourage us to exercise, eat healthier or remind us to take our medicine," said William Chopik, an assistant professor at the Michigan State University in the US.

"When your partner is optimistic and healthy, it can translate to similar outcomes in your own life. You actually do experience a rosier future by living longer and staving off cognitive illnesses," Chopik said.

An optimistic partner may encourage eating healthy foods, or working out together to develop healthier lifestyles, the researchers said.

For example, if a person quits smoking or starts exercising, their partner is close to following suit, they said.

"We found that when you look at the risk factors for what predicts things like Alzheimer's disease or dementia, a lot of them are things like living a healthy lifestyle," Chopik said.

"Maintaining a healthy weight and physical activity are large predictors.There are some physiological markers as well. It looks like people who are married to optimists tend to score better on all of those metrics," he said.

The researchers said there is a sense where optimists lead by example, and their partners follow their lead.

They also suggest that when couples recall shared experiences together, richer details from the memories emerge.

Chopik noted while there is a heritable component to optimism, there is some evidence to suggest that it's a trainable quality.

"There are studies that show people have the power to change their personalities, as long as they engage in things that make them change," Chopik said.

"Part of it is wanting to change. There are also intervention programs that suggest you can build up optimism," he added.

Probiotics that broaden the mix of helpful bacteria in the gut may help to ease depression, say researchers.

Foods that broaden the profile of helpful bacteria in the gut are collectively known as probiotics. These "good bacteria" can be taken as supplements, or found naturally in yoghurts or fermented foods.

For the findings, the research team from the University of Brighton in the UK searched for relevant studies published in English between 2003 and 2019, which looked at the potential therapeutic contribution of pre-and probiotics in adults with depression and/or anxiety disorders.

Out of an initial haul of 71 studies, just seven met all the criteria for inclusion. All 7 investigated at least one probiotic strain; four looked at the effect of combinations of multiple strains.In all, 12 probiotic strains featured in the selected studies, primarily Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, and Bifidobacterium bifidium.

One study looked at combined pre-probiotic treatment, while one looked at prebiotic therapy by itself. The studies varied considerably in their design, methods used, and clinical considerations, but all of them concluded that probiotic supplements either alone or in combination with prebiotics may be linked to measurable reductions in depression.

And every study showed a significant fall or improvement in anxiety symptoms and clinically relevant changes in biochemical measures of anxiety or depression with probiotic or combined pre-probiotic use.

Of the 12 different probiotics investigated, 11 were potentially useful, the findings showed.'Probiotics may help reduce the production of inflammatory chemicals, such as cytokines, as is the case in inflammatory bowel disease, the researchers suggested.

"They may help direct the action of tryptophan, a chemical thought to be important in the gut-brain axis in psychiatric disorders," they added.

In this way, with a better understanding of the mechanisms, probiotics may prove to be a useful tool across a wide range of conditions," the authors wrote.

Early treatment with the antiviral drug remdesivir has been found to reduce viral load and prevent lung disease in macaques infected with SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19, according to a study.

The findings, published in the journal Nature on Tuesday, support the early use of remdesivir treatment in patients with COVID-19 to prevent progression to pneumonia.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health in the US noted that remdesivir has broad antiviral activity and has been shown to be effective against infections with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV in animal models.

The drug is being tested in human clinical trials for the treatment of COVID-19, they said.

Researcher Emmie de Wit and colleagues investigated the effects of remdesivir treatment in rhesus macaques, a recently established model of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Two sets of six macaques were inoculated with SARS-CoV-2.

One group was treated with remdesivir 12 hours later -- close to the peak of virus reproduction in the lungs -- and these macaques received treatment every 24 hours until six days after inoculation.

In contrast to the control group, the researchers found that macaques that received remdesivir did not show signs of respiratory disease, and had reduced damage to the lungs.

Viral loads in the lower respiratory tract were also reduced in the treated animals; viral levels were around 100 times lower in the lower-respiratory tract of remdesivir-treated macaques 12 hours after the first dose, they said.

The researchers said that infectious virus could no longer be detected in the treatment group three days after initial infection, but was still detectable in four out of six control animals.

Despite this virus reduction in the lower respiratory tract, no reduction in virus shedding was observed, which indicates that clinical improvement may not equate to a lack of infectiousness, they said.

Dosing of remdesivir in the rhesus macaques is equivalent to that used in humans, the researchers noted.

They cautioned that it is difficult to directly translate the timing of treatment used in corresponding disease stages in humans, because rhesus macaques normally develop only mild disease.

However, researchers said the results indicate that remdesivir treatment of COVID-19 should be initiated as early as possible to achieve the maximum treatment effect.