Staying Active Slows Cognitive Decline

Do you really think your doctor is competent enough to get you recovered enough to do this type of exercise? Ask for proof before you pay your doctor one thin dime.  In my opinion, there is not a doctor in the world that can guarantee recovery enough to accomplish this! The key word there is GUARANTEE; nothing less!

I'm definitely active but nothing my doctor did got me there!

Staying Active Slows Cognitive Decline

Summary: Regular physical activity isn’t just good for the body—it protects the brain as we age. A 16-year study of over 13,000 adults found that sustained physical activity significantly slowed cognitive decline.

Even modest increases in weekly activity, from light chores to vigorous exercise, were associated with measurable brain benefits. The findings underscore the value of building long-term exercise habits to delay dementia and maintain quality of life.

Key Facts:

• Lifelong Benefit: Consistent physical activity over many years slows cognitive decline in older adults.
• Any Movement Helps: Even mild or moderate activities like vacuuming or gardening make a difference.
• Delay Dementia: Regular activity could delay the onset of dementia by several years.
• Source: University of Georgia

Physical activity is widely recognized as an important aspect of a healthy lifestyle, but a new study from the University of Georgia has found an additional benefit — staving off cognitive decline.

Researchers at the UGA College of Public Health analyzed data from more than 13,000 survey respondents and found that sustained physical activity can reduce the rate of cognitive decline for older adults. This data shows the importance of maintaining consistent physical activity throughout life, said lead author Suhang Song.

“We found that longer and more frequent engagement in physical activity, was associated with delayed cognitive decline,” said Song, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

“These protective benefits grew over the length of the study.”

Even exercising just once a week makes a difference

The researchers relied on data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative study that followed adults 50 years and over for 16 years.

Respondents reported how frequently they were physically active as well as their level of activity according to intensity. Vigorous activities included things like running and jogging. Gardening, dancing or stretching were classified as moderate activities while vacuuming, doing laundry and making home repairs were considered mild.

“If this slower decline continues, it could potentially delay the onset of dementia by many years.” Said Suhang Song, College of Public Health.

The study did not look at specific exercise time, but rather overall activity habits, and found that individuals who sustained regular physical activity throughout their lives experienced a significantly slower rate of cognitive decline.

For example, increasing vigorous physical activity from one to three times per month to once per week was linked to a measurable slowing of cognitive decline. Even increasing moderate physical activity from once per week to multiple times per week led to a slower rate of cognitive decline over time.

“The improvement of the decline rate may seem modest, but it builds up over time. If this slower decline continues, it could potentially delay the onset of dementia by many years, giving people more time to live independently and maintain quality of life,” Song said.

Regular activity should be encouraged in practice and policy

The findings build on existing research that links physical activity with cognitive health, but what sets this study apart is its focus on the duration and consistency of activity over time.

Promoting consistent physical activity may be a key component of any program aimed at reducing dementia risk in older adults, Song said.

Supporting building and maintaining long-term physical activity habits, through guidance from physicians and care providers, could help individuals adopt more sustainable routines by setting realistic, achievable goals, the researchers said.

Ultimately, Song’s message is simple: Move more and keep up activity.

“Our findings offer support in informing targeted interventions that support timely, consistent and long-term physical activity among older adults,” Song said. “From clinical practice and from the intervention side, continuous physical activity is an important proactive measure.”

About this exercise and cognitive decline research news

Author: Savannah Peat
Source: University of Georgia
Contact: Savannah Peat – University of Georgia
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

Original Research: Open access.
“Long-term cumulative physical activity associated with less cognitive decline: Evidence from a 16-year cohort study” by Suhang Song et al. Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease

Light Physical Activity Might Be Enough to Stave Off Dementia, New Research Says

 Well shit, I'm not taking any chances, I'm going for highly active just like I'm doing 10-12 cups of coffee a day to prevent dementia. I'm not going to fall short. Hopefully the double whammy will prevent dementia.

Coffee May Lower Your Risk of Dementia Feb. 2013

And this: Coffee's Phenylindanes Fight Alzheimer's Plaque December 2018 

If your hospital hasn't created a 24 hour coffee station, they are completely and totally fucking incompetent, for at least 8 years.

Light Physical Activity Might Be Enough to Stave Off Dementia, New Research Says

Did you know the most popular new year's resolution year after year is to exercise more? While that's a valiant goal, more is not always better—especially if you set such a lofty goal that you can't stick with it…and subsequently feel like a failure and quit trying.

But you might not need to focus on going from 0 to 100 to benefit your body and your brain. Lightly active adults reduced their risk for dementia by a sizable 20% after a 3 ½ year follow-up compared to their inactive peers, according to a study published December 16 in the journal JAMA Open Network.

This echoes the findings of a study released earlier this year that found walking just 3 times per week could reduce dementia risk and builds on 2019 research that suggested 10 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per day could protect against cognitive decline. So, what exactly does light physical activity look like? According to this study, it's as light as walking at a slow or leisurely pace.

There's no cure (yet) for dementia and it's most common type, Alzheimer's disease. So doctors are hustling to determine which lifestyle habits may reduce the risk or at least delay the onset of dementia.

For this study, a team of Korean researchers tapped into medical records in the Korean National Health Insurance Service database for 62,286 participants who were 65 years or older who had not yet received a dementia diagnosis. The individuals were about 60% women and 40% men with an average age of 73. Each person recorded his or her physical activity including frequency, intensity and duration of exercise via a self-reported questionnaire. After 3 ½ years, on average, the researchers followed up and found that 6% of the participants had developed dementia.

Related: Have a Family History of Dementia or Alzheimer's? Here's How to Protect Your Brain as You Age

Using these reports, the researchers split the group into levels: inactive, insufficiently active, active and highly active. In terms of dementia risk, after accounting for age, sex and other comorbidities, they found:

• Inactive participants were the baseline

• Insufficiently-active participants were at 10% lower risk for dementia

• Active participants were at 20% lower risk for dementia

• Highly-active participants were at 28% lower risk for dementia

That means even a little bit can go a long way in terms of exercise's bang for your brain buck. (BTW, those activity levels are based on one recommendation for ideal physical activity level: 500 to 999 metabolic equivalent task minutes (or MET minutes) per week. For more on what MET minutes are, check out our piece about whether it's better to sleep in or exercise when you're tired.)

Moving from sedentary to just some "light-intensity physical activity is associated with metabolism, and this vascular, cellular, and metabolic change by light-intensity physical activity could be beneficial in reducing dementia risk," Boyoung Joung, M.D., a professor of internal medicine at Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, Republic of Korea, and the study's corresponding author tells Medical News Today.

That said, this study cannot prove any causal link. In other words, are those likely to develop dementia naturally less active because they're already experiencing some mild symptoms? Or could other factors be at play and the exercise rates just be a coincidence—or mis-reported since these were questionnaires that could be fibbed on?

"The idea that physical activity reduces the risk of dementia is entirely plausible, and these findings add to a growing body of evidence supporting this idea," John Gallacher, Ph.D., director of Dementias Platform UK at the University of Oxford tells Medical News Today. "The problem is reverse causation—that is, that people with dementia exercise less. This study goes some way to addressing this by looking at incident events and dropping subjects with incident dementia in the first 2 years of follow-up."

Related: 7 Sneaky Lifestyle Habits That Could Increase Your Dementia Risk

 

For stroke survivors, light physical activity linked to better daily function

Is this your hospitals 'Get out of jail free' card? Allowing them to declare rehab a success if you can do light physical activity? I would be screaming at my providers if this crapola is the best they are trying for.  You need to demand 100% recovery.

For stroke survivors, light physical activity linked to better daily function

Apr 2, 2020 8:30 am by Diana Yates  | Life Sciences Editor, U. of I. News Bureau  | 217-333-5802Life Sciences

Kinesiology and community health professor Neha Gothe and her colleagues examined the relationship between physical activity and physical function in stroke survivors. They found that those who engaged in more light physical activity also reported fewer functional limitations.

Photo courtesy Neha Gothe

• CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers used accelerometers to measure daily physical activity in 30 stroke survivors for a week, assessing how much the participants moved and how well they performed routine physical tasks. The study revealed that stroke survivors who engaged in a lot of light physical activity – taking leisurely walks or attending to nonstrenuous household chores, for example – also reported fewer physical limitations than their more sedentary peers.
  The researchers describe their findings in the American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
  “Stroke is a major cause of disability in older adults,” said Neha Gothe, a professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who led the research. “We know that physical activity can improve how well people survive a stroke and recover after the fact. But almost no research has looked at how physical activity of different intensities affects physical function among stroke survivors.”
  Gothe and her research team used two measures of physical ability – the Short Physical Performance Battery, which measures balance, walking speed and lower-limb endurance, and the Late-Life Function and Disability Instrument, which asks participants to report how difficult it is for them to perform daily tasks such as getting in and out of a car or pouring water from a heavy pitcher.
  The researchers discovered that, on average, the stroke survivors logged only about seven minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity per day.
  “In contrast, they averaged more than three hours of light physical activity each day,” Gothe said. “This includes things like walking at a leisurely pace, housekeeping, light gardening or other activities that do not cause a person to break a sweat.”
  The amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity was the best predictor of participants’ performance on objective measures of physical function, the researchers found. But a person’s self-reported ability to perform daily tasks was much more closely associated with the amount of time they engaged in light physical activity.
  “Our findings are preliminary but suggest that – in addition to moderate-to-vigorous physical activity – those daily routines that keep us on our feet and physically engaged in lighter tasks also contribute to better physical functioning in stroke survivors. This aligns with the latest Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans that emphasize the need to move more and sit less,” Gothe said. “Engaging in light physical activity can be healthy and beneficial, especially for those with chronic health conditions such as stroke.”
  Editor’s notes:
  To reach Neha Gothe, email npg@illinois.edu.
  The paper “Associations between physical activity intensities and physical function in stroke survivors” is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau.
  DOI: 10.1097/PHM.0000000000001410

Light Physical Activity Tied to Brain Volume

Ask your doctor, and not politely, if their failure to get you 100% recovered leaves you with enough physical activity to get these benefits. This is non-negotiable. 

Light Physical Activity Tied to Brain Volume

Potential benefits on brain aging may accrue at lower activity levels

• by Judy George, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today April 19, 2019

Incremental physical activity, even at a light intensity, was tied to larger brain volume, an analysis of middle-age adults in the Framingham Heart Study showed.
Each additional hour of light-intensity physical activity per day was associated with higher cerebral total brain volume, even among people not meeting national physical activity guidelines, reported Nicole Spartano, PhD, of the Boston University School of Medicine, and colleagues in JAMA Network Open.
"The research emphasizes the relationship we are seeing between people doing more light-intensity physical activity and also having maintained brain structures," Spartano said.
Past research has focused on moderate to vigorous physical activity, as have the U.S. Health and Human Services guidelines, she noted, but many adults are unable to meet the national exercise guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a week.
"Our study results don't discount moderate or vigorous physical activity as being important for healthy aging," Spartano told MedPage Today. "We are just adding to the science, suggesting that light-intensity physical activity might be important, too, especially for the brain."
The analysis compared the number of steps walked per day and dose of exercise (intensity x duration) with MRI total cerebral brain volume in 2,354 third-generation Framingham Heart Study participants who were a mean age of 53. The sample was predominantly white; 54.2% were women and 46.7% met the nationally recommended physical activity guidelines, averaging at least 21.4 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day. People with stroke, dementia, or other disorders that might affect brain MRI measures were excluded.
Each participant wore a hip-belt accelerometer for 8 days. The researchers classified activity measures of 200-1,486 counts/min as light activity and >1,486 counts/min as moderate to vigorous activity.
Their analysis showed:

• Each additional hour of light-intensity physical activity per day was associated with approximately 1.1 years of less brain aging (β estimate 0.22, SD 0.07; P=0.003).
• For people who didn't meet the physical activity guidelines, each hour of light-intensity activity (β estimate 0.28, SD 0.11; P=0.01) and achieving 7,500 steps or more per day (β estimate 0.44, SD 0.18; P=0.02) were associated with higher total brain volume, equal to about 1.4 to 2.2 years of less brain aging.
• Achieving 10,000 or more steps a day was associated with higher brain volume compared with fewer than 5,000 steps per day.

After adjusting for light-intensity activity, increasing moderate to vigorous activity levels was not significantly associated with total cerebral brain volume.
The overall results suggest the threshold of the favorable association for physical activity with brain aging may be at a lower, more achievable level of intensity and duration, the researchers noted.
"The main finding that physical activity, even fairly light, seems beneficial to brain volume maintenance is of considerable interest from a public heath viewpoint," said James Mortimer, PhD, of the University of South Florida School of Public Health, who was not involved with the study.
"Brain atrophy is a major correlate of dementing illnesses," Mortimer told MedPage Today. "Starting with more brain volume, therefore, may delay onset of these illnesses, including Alzheimer's."
But other variables may have affected the findings in this study, he observed. "We know from several published studies that greater education is associated with greater brain volume, especially gray matter," he said. "The effect reported here on physical activity and brain volume could in part be due to the association between more education and larger brain volumes."
The study had other limitations, the researchers noted. It was cross-sectional and time relationships between physical activity and brain volume were unknown. Brain atrophy also may have led to changes in physical activity.
Longitudinal studies with longer follow-up times are needed, they added. "It will be important to test whether light-intensity physical activity interventions in older adults can actually play a role in healthy brain aging," Spartano said. "We don't have effective preventions or treatment solutions to address the growing public health crisis of climbing dementia rates. So focusing on lifestyle interventions, which have shown some potential benefit, are vital at this point."
Because certain minority populations may have higher risks of developing dementia, effective prevention measures also need to be studied in different race, ethnic, and socio-economic groups, she added.

This study was funded by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, and the American Heart Association. Researchers reported no conflicts of interest.

last updated 04.18.2019

• Primary Source

  JAMA Network Open

  Source Reference: Spartano N, et al "Association of Accelerometer-Measured Light-Intensity Physical Activity With Brain Volume: The Framingham Heart Study" JAMA Network Open 2019; doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.2745.