These eight habits can slow down brain aging

Certain ones eight healthy lifestyle habits can slow down brain aging by years. Habits also seem to reduce the risk of memory disease, says the University of Maryland in the United States research.

A list of eight items is the signature of the prestigious American Heart Association, the AHA. It has been prepared above all with the well-being of the heart and blood vessels in mind.

However, a growing number of studies show that following the eight guidelines protects against many other ailments in addition to cardiovascular diseases: premature biological from agingpremature from death and from dementia.

Now the researchers found out the connection of eight points to the white matter of the brain. White matter carries messages in the brain, and it plays a central role in information processing. White matter decreases with age.

The conclusion of the yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study is that taking care of the eight habits may slow down the aging of the brain.

Premature expiration can be avoided if you follow these instructions:

• eat healthy – especially vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, plant-based proteins, lean animal proteins, skinless poultry, fish and seafood

• get enough exercise – at least 2.5 hours of vigorous aerobic exercise, such as swimming or dancing, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, such as running, each week

• stay away from tobacco, including e-cigarettes

• sleep 7–9 hours a night

• keep your weight under control, i.e. body mass index below 25

• control cholesterol levels

• keep blood sugar under control

• keep your blood pressure under control – the recommendation is less than 120/80 millimeters of mercury.

Fresh the study analyzed magnetic resonance images taken from the brains of nearly 19,000 people. The participants were aged 40–69, with an average age of 55. A little more than half were men. The material comes from the British Biobank.

Information about lifestyle was collected from the participants a few years before the brain scans. Each participant was scored on a scale of 0–100 according to how well they completed the eight-item list.

The researchers trained an artificial intelligence to predict how the characteristics of the brain’s white matter corresponded to the age of the participants.

Those who followed the eight-point guidelines had a younger-looking brain. Each ten-point increase on the 100-point lifestyle scale showed that the brain would be an average of 113 days younger than the age at birth based on white matter.

Significance was whether the participant was a carrier of the apolipoprotein e4 gene form.

Apoe4 is the main inherited risk factor for the most common memory disease of old age, Alzheimer’s disease, and about half of Alzheimer’s patients carry this form.

In the study, the connection between lifestyle and brain aging was stronger in those participants who were not carriers of the apoe4 form. For them, every ten-point increase on the lifestyle scale meant that the brain looked 124 days younger on average.

For carriers of the Apoe4 form, following the eight habits did not bring as much benefit. For them, each ten-point increase was associated with a brain that looked 84 days younger than its actual age.

In Finland, about 30 percent of the population has the apoe4 form.

Marylandin university researchers report their results on the pre-publication service Medrxiv. Research is according to the group currently in peer review.