Seniors Who Exercise Daily are at a Lesser Risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease: Study

Staying physically active can keep the brain healthy and protect against Alzheimer's disease, a study has found.

Alzheimer's disease is an advanced form of dementia that leads to drastic decline in memory, thinking and behavior skills. The data by the alz.org, a charity organization, suggests that more than five million people in the U.S. live with the disease and 500,000 die each year because they have Alzheimer's.  Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio studied 100 seniors aged between 65-89 years, who had a family history of Alzheimer's disease, to note their likelihood for developing the mental condition, reports the New York Times.

The experts also examined the participants' exercising habits and checked if they carried the gene 'APOE epsilon4 allele' or the 'e4 gene' that is associated to the disease. They found around half of the subjects with e4 gene did not exhibit any symptoms of memory decline that was abnormal for their age. These individuals underwent brain scans to screen the level of stimulation in brain areas as they performed a cognitive task.

It was observed that seniors with e4 gene, who engaged in regular workouts and physical activity, had a more active hippocampus, a brain region related to memory processing. They also had increased brain activity while solving cognitive tests.

In addition, the study recorded the intensity of workouts of the volunteers to find out if physical activity impacts brain structure. Majority of them reported not exercising daily and the rest indulged in mild jogging, walking or some other form of exercise in a week. Nearly 18 months post this trial, the brain scans of the people having e4 gene, who did not exercise revealed significant reduction in the brain volume, with three percent average shrinkage of the hippocampus. Volunteers with e4 gene who exercised daily and those without the gene, did not have variations in the brain shape and size.

They had relatively lesser risk of developing mental illnesses and Alzheimer's disease. But, brains of those who led a sedentary lifestyle had atrophy and were likely to turn dysfunctional.

More information is available online in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

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