Wiregrass Seniors Magazine May 2018 MAY ISSUE | Page 11

WiregrassSeniorsMagazine.com
When looking at people who had no signs of memory
and thinking problems at the start of the study, re-
searchers found that those reporting low activity lev-
els showed a greater decline over five years compared
to those with high activity levels on tests of how fast
they could perform simple tasks and how many words
they could remember from a list.
The difference was equal to that of 10 years of aging.
The difference also remained after researchers ad-
justed for other factors that could affect brain health,
such as smoking, alcohol use, high blood pressure
and body mass index.
"Physical activity is an attractive option to reduce the
burden of cognitive impairment in public health be-
cause it is low cost and doesn't interfere with medica-
tions," said Wright.
"Our results suggest that moderate to intense exer-
cise may help older people delay aging of the brain,
but more research from randomized clinical trials com-
paring exercise programs to more sedentary activity
is needed to confirm these results."
The study was a collaboration between the University
of Miami and Columbia University and was supported
by the National Institutes of Health and National Insti-
tute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
To learn more about brain health, visit http://
www.aan.com/patients.
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