Regular exercise may be the key to slowing memory loss in seniors at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, according to a recent study.
Seniors with mild cognitive impairment who completed memory tests before and after a three-month treadmill walking exercise study did not need to use nearly as much brain function to complete the same tests after exercise, according to a study published online June 26 in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Mild cognitive impairment is considered a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative brain disease. Because there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, the study shows there is hope for people who experience mild memory loss, said lead study author J. Carson Smith, PhD, FACSM, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s Department of Kinesiology. Seniors with mild cognitive impairment can still function as independent adults, he said.
“There may be something exercise can do to help delay or perhaps prevent the onset of full blown Alzheimer’s symptoms,” Smith told The Nation’s Health.
The study tracked 17 seniors with mild cognitive impairment and 18 seniors with no impairment during exercise that increased with intensity over time. Before and after the exercise, researchers completed an MRI scan of each senior’s brain and performed memory exercises. One exercise listed 60 names, half of which were famous people, such as singer Frank Sinatra, and half who were non-famous. Seniors had to indicate which names were or were not famous.
Based on brain imaging results, seniors with mild cognitive impairment after the 12-week walking exercise did not use more brain activity to complete the memory exercise to compensate for any previous memory loss. The finding means the exercise does not require a senior’s brain to work as hard at remembering names, an effect that could potentially enhance the brain’s ability to protect against damage, the study found.
But researchers said it is not yet certain if exercise could affect the neuropathology of Alzheimer’s disease.
It is unclear what the exercise is doing to improve memory function and it could be a variety of reasons, Carson said. He said the exercise could result in an increase in blood flow to the brain, or it may promote new blood vessels and capillaries in the brain, which allow blood to reach neurons.
“The one part of the brain affected by the exercise the most is the hippocampus,” Smith said. “That’s attacked first in Alzheimer’s. Exercise is known to stimulate the growth of new nerve cells in the hippocampus. The hippocampus supports all of our memory retrieval processes.”
Smith said he hopes that enough evidence about exercise and memory is gathered to shape public health policy and promote community-based programs targeted at people with a family history of Alzheimer’s or caregivers of parents with the disease.
“If these programs are made available we can intervene on a broader scale in community-based programs across the country,” Smith said. “There could be a way, a mechanism that people could do this. It would be low cost and the barriers to participation would be removed.”
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