Study Confirms Staying Active Is Hedge Against Alzheimers
In the continuing search for preventives and cures for Alzheimer’s disease, some of the most positive results may come with life style changes that are readily available. In the category of directives like “eat your vegetables and exercise daily,” come scientific findings now that confirm that simple steps really do seem to make a dramatic difference.
In July of this year, at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Paris, Deborah Barnes, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and a mental health researcher at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, presented a statistical model to explain relationships between Alzheimer’s and potentially modifiable risk factors both in the U.S. and worldwide. In other words, the paper describes what we might do to change our behavior to make it less likely that we would develop Alzheimer’s.
It is important to note that, although the answers were direct and profound, the study did not explicitly say that Alzheimer’s could be prevented if you followed these steps but only that the statistical relationship between these factors and Alzheimer’s was noted. The worldwide results were somewhat different than those in the United States.
In the U.S., the most striking finding was that physical inactivity was, at 21%, the most directly related to Alzheimer’s. Other factors included depression at 15%, smoking at 11%, mid-life hypertension at 8%, mid-life obesity at 7%, low education (possibly related to nutritional knowledge) at 7%, and diabetes at 3%.
Taking a closer look at the 7 factors described, physical inactivity plays a role in many of them. For instance, other studies have indicated that people who exercise regularly are less likely to be depressed. The relationship between exercise and weight loss is so often described that it does not need further elaboration. Development of Type 2 diabetes from mid-life and upward has been related to weight gain and so on. The indicator of low education would seem to relate to nutritional understanding.
Barnes commented that she and other researchers were surprised that lifestyle factors such as physical inactivity and smoking appear to contribute to a larger number of Alzheimer’s cases than cardiovascular diseases in their model. …”This suggests that relatively simple lifestyle changes such as increasing physical activity and quitting smoking could have a dramatic impact on the number of Alzheimer’s cases over time.”
According to Barnes’ calculations, a ten percent reduction in the seven risk factors could potentially prevent 1.1 million Alzheimer’s cases worldwide and 184,000 cases in the U.S. over time. If there were a 25% reduction, according to the mathematical modeling, potentially 492,000 cases could be prevented in the U.S. over time and 3 million worldwide.
Barnes pointed out that the next step is to perform large scale studies “to really find out whether changing these risk factors will lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s over time.” The study results were expected to be published in Lancet Neurology.
What is truly amazing, in addition to the statistical relationship between inactivity and Alzheimer’s is that the seven risk factors described are believed at this point to account for up to 51% of Alzheimer’s cases worldwide (17.2 million cases) and up to 54% of U.S. Alzheimer’s cases (2.9 million cases) according to Barnes.
Barnes commented that “We are assuming that when you change the risk factor, then you change the risk… What we need to do now is figure out whether that assumption is correct.”
A senior investigator and chief of geriatric psychiatry at San Francisco V.A. Medical Center noted that the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease is expected to triple over the next 40 years. Her comment presented at the Conference was “It would be extremely significant if we could find out how to prevent even some of those cases.”
Whether these findings will cause Americans to take a second look at the need for exercise and physical activity will also need to be discovered. It may cause some of us to dust off our running shoes.
For more, listen to “50+ Planning Ahead” a weekly radio program on WCHE 1520 on every Wednesday from 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm with Janet Colliton, Colliton Law Assocs., PC, and Phil McFadden of Home Instead Senior Care.
About the Author Janet Colliton
Esquire, Colliton Law Associates, P.C. Janet Colliton has practiced law for over 38 years, 37 of them in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Her practice, Colliton Law Associates, PC, is limited to elder law, Medicaid, including advice, applications and appeals, and other benefits planning including Veterans benefits, life care and special needs planning, guardianships, retirement, and estate planning and administration.