Walking counteracts brain atrophy in older adults

February, 2011
  • Walking 40 minutes a day three days a week prevented ‘normal’ atrophy in the brains of older adults.

Another study has come out proclaiming the cognitive benefits of walking for older adults. Previously sedentary adults aged 55-80 who walked around a track for 40 minutes on three days a week for a year increased the size of their hippocampus, as well as their level of BDNF. Those assigned to a stretching routine showed no such growth. There were 120 participants in the study.

The growth of around 2% contrasts with the average loss of 1.4% hippocampal tissue in the stretching group — an amount of atrophy considered “normal” with age. Although both groups improved their performance on a computerized spatial memory test, the walkers improved more.

The findings are consistent with a number of animal studies showing aerobic exercise increases neurogenesis and BDNF in the hippocampus, and human studies pointing to a lower risk of cognitive decline and dementia in those who walk regularly.

Reference: 

[2097] Erickson, K. I., Voss M. W., Prakash R S., Basak C., Szabo A., Chaddock L., et al.
(Submitted).  Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Related News

A study involving 254 people with dementia living at home has found that 99% of people with dementia and 97% of their caregivers had one or more unmet needs, 90% of which were safety-related.

A new U.S. study suggests that Alzheimer's disease and other dementias are markedly under-reported on death certificates and medical records. Death certificates tend to only provide an immediate cause, such as pneumonia, and don’t mention the underlying condition that provoked it.

It’s often argued that telling people that they carry genes increasing their risk of Alzheimer’s will simply upset them to no purpose. A new study challenges that idea.

11 new genetic susceptibility factors for Alzheimer’s identified

Understanding a protein's role in familial Alzheimer's disease

Analysis of data from 237 patients with mild cognitive impairment (mean age 79.9) has found that, compared to those carrying the ‘normal’ ApoE3 gene (the most common variant of the ApoE gene), the ApoE4 carriers showed markedly greater rates of shrinkage in 13 of 15 brain regions thought to be k

Analysis of data from more than 8,000 people, most of them older than 60, has revealed that, among the 5,000 people initially tested cognitively normal, carrying one copy of the “Alzheimer’s gene” (ApoE4) only slightly increased men’s risk of developing

Analysis of 700 subjects from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative has revealed a genetic mutation (rs4728029) that’s associated with people who develop Alzheimer’s pathology but don’t show clinical symptoms in their lifetime.

Analysis of brain scans and cognitive scores of 64 older adults from the NIA's Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (average age 76) has found that, between the most cognitively stable and the most declining (over a 12-year period), there was no significant difference in the total amount of amy

A pilot study involving 94 older adults, of whom 18 had Alzheimer’s, 24 had

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.