Physical activity can delay the onset of symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease by up to seven years in people at risk for the disease, according to research published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.
A team of scientists from Australia, Canada and the United States has followed for 14 years nearly 300 people with preclinical Alzheimer’s, who had no symptoms of the disease but had a high accumulation of Tau and Beta-amyloid proteins in the brain, making them at-risk patients.
Link Between Exercise and Alzheimer Discovered
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The scientists aimed to find out whether physical activity, even if moderate, influenced the development of the disease. Their results have confirmed that it does.
Older adults who walk less than 3,000 steps a day and have elevated levels of Beta-amyloid protein in the brain, clearly associated with the development of Alzheimer’s, show faster cognitive decline compared to more active people.
In contrast, cognitive decline and loss of function in activities of daily living is delayed by an average of three years in people who walk between 3,000 and 5,000 steps per day, and by an average of seven years in those who walk at least 5,000 to 7,500 steps per day.
“Our finding shows that increasing the number of steps, even slightly, can help slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in people at high risk of developing it,” says one of the authors, Jasmeer Chhatwal, a neurologist at Mass General Brigham, a medical research consortium between Harvard University and Boston’s most prestigious hospitals.
In Chhatwal’s view, his discovery would explain why some people at risk of Alzheimer’s deteriorate more rapidly than others cognitively, while allowing lifestyle changes to be used as a therapeutic strategy.
Every step counts
Buzzy
The researchers analyzed data from 296 participants aged 50 to 90 years from the Harvard Brain Aging Study, all of whom had no cognitive impairment at baseline.
They used a non-invasive test that measures the metabolic activity of the human body in real time (Positron Emission Tomography, PET) to measure basal levels of Beta-amyloid in plaques and Tau in neurofibrillary tangles in the brains of participants.
In parallel, they measured the physical activity of the participants with waist pedometers.
Participants underwent annual follow-up cognitive assessments for a period of between 2 and 14 years (a mean of 9.3 years), and a subgroup also underwent PET scans to analyze changes in Tau protein.
The results showed that a higher number of steps was associated with slower rates of cognitive decline and slower accumulation of Tau proteins in participants with elevated baseline levels of Beta-amyloid protein.
Exercise, therefore, slows the accumulation of Tau protein, and lack of exercise has the opposite effect.
“Our study shows that every step counts, and even a small increase in activity results in improved brain and cognitive health. Staying physically active is one way to protect the brain,” says another of the authors, Wai-Ying Wendy Yau, a neurologist at Mass General Brigham, in a statement from the center.
Looking ahead, researchers plan to delve deeper into which aspects of physical activity may be most important in slowing Alzheimer's, and into the biological mechanisms underlying this influence
Agencia Efe
The authors consider it essential that this work can help design future clinical trials testing exercise interventions to slow cognitive decline in old age, especially in people at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Filed under: Alzheimer and exercise
With information from EFE
