Even a little exercise significantly delays the onset of Alzheimer’s

Quite even moderate daily exercise significantly delays the onset of Alzheimer’s disease compared to inactivity, says a fresh researchwhich is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Immobility was already known to be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Information on the amount of movement has been unreliable, because studies have mostly been satisfied with people’s own assessment of the amount of movement.

Now the researchers used a pedometer to measure the physical activity of people who already had signs of Alzheimer’s disease in the brain. At the beginning of the study, however, their memory and ability to function was intact.

Those who took at least 3,000 to 5,000 steps a day delayed the onset of the disease by an average of three years compared to those who were sedentary. 5,000–7,500 steps per day delayed functional decline by seven years. More exercise no longer brought any additional benefit.

Three thousand steps corresponds to a distance of a couple of kilometers on average for a healthy adult. Of course, the older step gets shorter.

“Very the encouraging information is that even a little exercise seems to help”, says In the journal Nature one of the authors of the study, Wai Ying Wendy Yau from Harvard University in the United States.

It is not known exactly how and why Alzheimer’s disease develops. However, it includes the amyloid plaque that accumulates in the brain and the tangles of tau protein inside the brain cells.

The decrease in intellectual abilities seems to be more connected to the increase in tau pairs.

In a new study, it was also found that a greater amount of exercise specifically slowed down the accumulation of tauyu compounds. It had almost no effect on the amount of amyloid plaque.

Major however, those who had a lot of amyloid plaque at the start of the study and who exercised very little seemed to be at risk for developing the disease.

“They are the most likely to get sick and therefore it is they who should be tried to get moving,” says another author of the study Jasmeer Chhatwal from Harvard University.

296 people between the ages of 50 and 90 participated in the study. The monitoring continued for 14 years at most.