Right up until my stroke I would have rated my fitness as an athlete. So does that negate my 33% of stroke survivors that get dementia.?
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=139368&CultureCode=en
How would you rate your own physical fitness? Is it good,
satisfactory or maybe even poor? Surprisingly, your answer may reveal
your future risk of getting dementia.
A recent collaborative study from Finland, involving the follow-up of
3,559 adults for 30 years, has found that a simple question about
self-rated physical fitness in midlife may reveal individuals who are at
an increased risk of developing dementia. Those who reported poor
self-rated physical fitness in midlife, at the mean age of 50 years,
were four times more likely to get dementia during the next three
decades compared to those with good self-rated physical fitness.
“Previous research has shown that self-rated health is a strong
indicator of adverse health events. This is the first large
population-based study investigating associations between self-rated
physical fitness during the three decades from midlife to later life and
dementia risk,” says Postdoctoral Researcher, Dr Jenni Kulmala from the
Gerontology Research Center at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
The association between poor self-rated physical fitness and dementia
was most pronounced among noncarriers of the apolipoprotein E ε4
allele, that is, people who did not have a strong genetic susceptibility
for dementia. A strong association was also observed among people with
chronic diseases.
“Chronic conditions independently increase the dementia risk.
Furthermore, if a person additionally feels that his or her physical
fitness is poor, the risk is even higher. In terms of dementia
prevention, maintaining good physical fitness seems to be especially
important for people with chronic diseases,” Kulmala says.
Poor self-rated fitness is known to be affected by lifestyle factors
such as physical inactivity, poor mental wellbeing, lack of social
connections, lower education, high body mass index and smoking.
Perceived poor physical fitness therefore integrates several
unfavourable aspects of lifestyle that have all been previously linked
to increased dementia risk.
“The perception of poor physical fitness is most likely affected by
different factors for different people. Therefore, I would encourage
those who rate their fitness as poor to think about the factors behind
this perception. Increasing physical and social activity, making better
dietary choices or quitting smoking, for example, could change the
rating into more positive. Individual choices that make you feel
physically better may substantially decrease your future risk of
developing dementia,” Kulmala says.
The participants in this study came from the Cardiovascular Risk
Factors, Aging and Incidence of Dementia (CAIDE) study, which is an
ongoing joint effort of the Department of Neurology at the University of
Eastern Finland, Kuopio; the National Institute of Health and Welfare,
Helsinki, Finland; and the Aging Research Center of Karolinska
Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. The aim of the CAIDE study is to
investigate the connection between social, lifestyle and cardiovascular
risk factors and cognition and dementia. The Academy of Finland has
funded the research through Jenni Kulmala’s project.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.12202/abstract
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