So your doctor needs to get you recovered enough to get 52 hours of exercise in 6 months. THIS IS YOUR DOCTOR'S RESPONSIBILITY. Don't let them use the fuckingly lazy excuse of: 'All strokes are different, all stroke recoveries are different.' If that comes from your doctor, then you need to call the hospital president and ask when incompetent doctors will be fired.
Brain Aging Tied to Leisure Time Physical Activity
— Walking, gardening, swimming, dancing linked to larger brain volume in older adults
Adults with an average age of 75 who had the most physical activity had a total brain volume that was 1.4% larger than those with the least activity, reported Yian Gu, PhD, of Columbia University in New York City, and co-authors, in an early-release abstract from the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting, which will be held here in April.
The effect was equal to about 4 years of brain aging, Gu noted.
"These results are exciting, as they suggest that people may potentially prevent brain shrinking and the effects of aging on the brain simply by becoming more active," she said in a statement.
Previous research has linked physical activity with cognition in older adults. A systematic review in 2018 showed that exercising for 52 hours over 6 months was associated with improvements in processing speed and executive function. Last year, a longitudinal study showed that a higher level of daily physical activity was tied to slower amyloid-beta related cognitive decline in clinically normal older adults.
In their analysis, Gu and colleagues studied leisure-time physical activity and MRI measures of 1,557 older adults in the Washington/Hamilton Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project (WHICAP) study, a community-based, multi-ethnic cohort of older adults.
No participants had dementia, but 296 people had mild cognitive impairment and 28% carried the APOE E4 allele. Participants had a mean 11.4 years of education and body mass index of 28.4. In total, 64% were women; 26% were non-Hispanic white, 34% were African American, and 38% were Hispanic.
Participants reported their daily tasks and leisure time physical activity, and researchers grouped them into three categories:
- Inactive
- Somewhat active: either 2.5 hours of low-intensity physical activity, 1.5 hours of moderate physical activity, or 1 hour of high-intensity physical activity a week
- Most active: either 7 hours of low-intensity physical activity, 4 hours of moderate physical activity, or 2 hours of high-intensity physical activity a week
Compared with people in the lowest tertile of leisure activity, those with the highest tertile had larger total brain volume (β=12.17, P=0.001; P=0.001 for trend), total gray matter volume (β=7.18, P<0.0001; P=0.001 for trend), and total white matter volume (β=6.82, P=0.005; P=0.005 for trend) after adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, APOE E4 status, intracranial volume, and recruitment waves. Leisure activity was not associated with white matter hyperintensity volume.
Associations were slightly attenuated after further adjusting for body mass index and vascular comorbidities. Results remained similar after excluding people with mild cognitive impairment.
The effect size comparing the highest to the lowest tertile of leisure activity was equivalent to about 3 to 4 years of aging (about 4 years for total brain and total gray matter volumes, and about 3 years for total white matter volume), Gu told MedPage Today.
The study had several limitations. It was observational and does not prove exercise prevents brain shrinkage, Gu noted. In addition, physical activity was based on self-report and may be subject to recall bias.
Last Updated March 06, 2020
Disclosures
The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institutes of Health.
Primary Source
American Academy of Neurology
No comments:
Post a Comment