If you hear a little voice inside say, "Go for a walk," that might be your brain telling you what it needs. I've just come across two new studies that...
If you hear a little voice inside say, "Go for a walk," that might be
your brain telling you what it needs.
I've just come across two new studies that reveal how the simple
act of taking a walk each day may offer significant protection from
one of the most feared of all health problems.
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Mission: healthy cognition
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Cognitive decline is a symptom that signals the possible onset of
Alzheimer's disease, which is the leading cause of dementia
among aging adults. In September, the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) published two studies that
specifically address the effects of light exercise on cognitive
decline in older women and dementia in elderly men.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health conducted the
first study. Questionnaires were used to assess physical activity
levels and exercise patterns for more than 18,700 women, aged 70
to 81 years. The questionnaires covered a minimum of nine years,
and were followed up with two telephone interviews with each
subject to assess cognitive health measures such as memory and
attention span.
In the conclusion to the study, the Harvard team wrote that
significantly better cognitive function and less cognitive decline
were both strongly associated with "long-term regular physical
activity, including walking."
Lead researcher, Jennifer Weuve, ScD., told Internet Broadcasting
Systems that women who walked two to three hours at an easy
pace each week "performed significantly better on these tests of
cognition than women who walked less than one hour per week."
And even less cognitive decline was noted in women who walked
six or more hours each week.
These results reminded me of another benefit of regular walking
among women. In the e-Alert "Second Pass" (4/5/04), I told you
about a six-year breast cancer study that included data on more
than 74,000 women over the age of 50. Researchers found that
women who exercise regularly have lower breast cancer rates. And
in many cases, only a couple of hours of brisk walking each week
may provide enough exercise to reduce breast cancer risk.
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Men on the march
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In the second JAMA study, researchers at the University of
Virginia School of Medicine looked at the association between
walking exercise and the risk of dementia in men aged 71 to 93.
The Virginia team collected three years of exercise data on more
than 2,200 men enrolled in the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study. At the
outset of the study, none of the men had been diagnosed with
dementia or conditions that would prevent them from walking
(such as stroke or Parkinson's disease). Over the course of several
years, two follow up examinations were conducted to assess
neurological health.
Almost 160 of the men developed dementia during the study
period. Researchers found that men who walked between a quarter
mile and one mile per day had a lower risk of dementia than those
who walked less than a quarter mile each day. But in the case of
this study, more was clearly better because men who walked less
than a quarter mile per day had nearly TWICE the risk of dementia
compared to those who walked more than two miles each day.
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Walking cholesterol down
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What is it about taking a daily walk that might prevent cognitive
decline and dementia? It could have something to do with
cholesterol's association to Alzheimer's disease.
Previous research has suggested that high cholesterol levels may
increase the level of a certain protein that is abnormally processed
by people with Alzheimer's disease. This abnormal processing sets
off a chain reaction that causes a peptide to accumulate and form
tangles that can kill brain cells.
A Georgetown University Medical Center study showed how
high cholesterol levels significantly increase the rate at which these
tangles are formed. In addition, the researchers concluded that high
cholesterol also increases the production of a different protein that
transports cholesterol out of the cell. And while that's a normal
function, in this situation it results in an unfortunate increase of
free cholesterol, which has a toxic effect on nerve cells.
Of course, daily exercise is one of the best and safest ways to
control cholesterol levels. Neither the Harvard nor the Virginia
researchers speculated on why regular exercise through walking
might have helped prevent cognitive decline and dementia, but it
seems likely that reducing cholesterol levels may have come into
play.
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