Variety of leisure and
physical activities rather than intensity in calorie expenditure may
reduce risk for dementia in older people
Variety of leisure and physical activities
rather than intensity in calorie expenditure may reduce risk for
dementia in older people, according to an article in the April issue
of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
General physical activity is already known
to enhance cardiovascular health and help maintain independence
and quality of life in older people, but the results of this study
- which establish a statistical association, and not a direct cause
and effect, between variety of exercise and reduced dementia risk
-- suggest that participating in a number of different activities
may be as or more important than frequency, duration, and intensity
of physical activity with respect to dementia risk.
“We don’t yet know why this association exists
or what causes it. It could well be that maintaining a variety of
activities keeps more parts of the brain active, or that this variety
reflects better engagement in both physical and social activities.
onfirmation of this association in future
studies may provide an additional impetus for people to remain or
become engaged in several physical and other leisure activities
later in life,” said Constantine G. Lyketsos, MD, senior author
on the report.
The study included 3,375 men and women age 65 years or older who
participated in the Cardiovascular Health Cognition Study from 1992
to 2000 and who did not have dementia at baseline. Each study volunteer
was asked to fill out a questionnaire about the frequency and duration
of the 15 most common types of physical activity in older adults,
including walking, household chores, mowing, raking, gardening,
hiking, jogging, biking, exercise cycling, dancing, aerobics, bowling,
golfing, general exercise and swimming. The researchers then created
an activity index, calculated as the number of different activities
each subject participated in over the previous two weeks. Other
measurements, including APOE genotype, age, gender, education level,
ethnicity, smoking, alcohol use, and other physical and mental health-related
history, were also considered in the study.
The researchers found 480 new cases of dementia
over an average of 5.4 years of follow-up. Among these, dementia
occurred less frequently in those participating in more activities
relative to those who participated in fewer activities (one or no
activity had 130 cases, two activities had 152 cases, three activities
had 113 cases, four or more activities had 84 cases). The association
held true for all types of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease
and vascular dementia. The association did not hold true for people
with the APOE-4 genotype.
“These findings, taken together with recent
findings from our colleagues at the University of Chicago studying
physical activity and plaque buildup in the brains of mice with
Alzheimer’s (published this year in the journal Cell) provide a
good picture from basic and clinical science of how activity and
exercise work to reduce the risk of dementia,” said Lyketsos.
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