Mental and physical exercise in Alzheimer’s
NEUROSCIENCE: Preventing Alzheimer’s: A Lifelong Commitment? — Marx 309 (5736): 864 — Science
Some quotes of interest:
For example, a 1997 study of 642 elderly people, conducted by Denis Evans of Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago and his colleagues, found that each year of education reduces a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 17%.
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As in other studies, Snowdon and his colleagues found that high education levels seem to protect against Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers originally thought that this supported the idea that more education leads to a higher cognitive reserve. But analysis of biographical essays the sisters had written when they entered the convent, usually in their early 20s, pointed in a different direction. The early writings, Snowdon says, were an even better predictor of who would get Alzheimer’s disease than education level. “Those who had the lowest linguistic skills at age 22 had a very high risk of Alzheimer’s,” Snowdon says. Indeed, most of the cases occurred in the nuns whose essays put them in the bottom third on the linguistic ability scale.
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A few years ago, Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and his colleagues performed a meta-analysis of 18 trials involving adults between the ages of 55 and 80 that explored the effects of physical exercise on performance of various cognitive tasks. They concluded that the answer to the question, “Does aerobic exercise enhance cognition?” was an “unequivocal yes.”
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As reported in the April issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, study members who engaged in four or more physical activities, which could be anything from gardening to jogging or biking, had about half the risk of dementia as that of participants who engaged in one or none. The effect was primarily seen, however, in persons who did not carry a gene variant called ApoE4 that’s known to increase Alzheimer’s risk. In the ApoE4-endowed population at least, genetics seems to trump activity.
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Another possibility is that exercise turns up production of proteins that stimulate neuronal growth. About 10 years ago, Carl Cotman’s team at UC Irvine, found that the brains of rats who ran voluntarily on a wheel show increases in one such factor, BDNF (for brain-derived neurotrophic factor). The increase was particularly strong in the hippocampus, an area involved in learning and memory that’s hard-hit by Alzheimer’s disease.
August 17th, 2005 at 5:01 am
[...] taken from neurodudes - [link] For example, a 1997 study of 642 elderly people, conducted by Denis Evans of Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago and his colleagues, found that each year of education reduces a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 17%. [...]