Healthy Discoveries: Walking may protect brain from shrinking in old age

Healthy discoveries

U.S. researchers said that people can Walk at least six miles a week to keep their brains from contraction and fight off dementia.

A study of about 300 people in Pittsburgh who kept track of how much they walked every week showed that people who walked at least six miles (9.6 kilometers) had less age-related brain contraction than people who walked less.


"Brain size shrinks in late adulthood, which can cause memory problems. Our results should embolden well-designed trials of physical exercise in older adults as a hopeful approach for preventing dementia and Alzheimer's disease," said Kirk Erickson of the University of Pittsburgh, whose study appears in the journal Neurology.


The most common form of dementia, Alzheimer's sickness, slowly kills off brain cells,and walking and other activities have been shown to build brain volume.


Erickson and colleagues tested to see if people who walk a lot might be better positioned to fight off the sickness. They studied about 299 volunteers who were free of dementia and who kept track of how much they walked.


Nine years later, scientists took brain scans to measure the size of their brain. After four more years, they tested to see if anyone in the study had dementia or cognitive impairment. They found that people who walked about six to nine miles (9.6 km -14.4 km) a week halved their risk of growing memory problems.
"Our results are in accordance with data that aerobic activity induces a host of cellular cascades that could conceivably raise  gray matter volume," the team wrote.


They said that they need to make more studies on the effects of exercise on dementia,  walking may be one thing people can do that may help reducing the risk of Alzheimer's in the absence of any effective treatments for Alzheimer's.


"If regular exercise in midlife could improve brain health and improve thinking and memory in later life, it would be one more reason to make regular exercise in people of all ages a public health imperative," Erickson said.


No current drugs can alter the progression of Alzheimer's, which affects more than 26 million people in the world.


If you like this article, please feed our RSS and share it now :)