Walking 3000-5000 Steps Daily May Delay Alzheimer’s
- Increasing your steps by even a little bit may help slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease among people at heightened risk, according to a new study.
- In a paper published in Nature Medicine, Mass general Brigham researchers found that physical activity was associated with slower rates of cognitive decline in older adults with elevated...
- Cognitive decline was delayed by three years on average for people who walked just 3,000-5,000 steps per day, and by seven years in people who walked 5,000-7,500 steps...
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Walking May Slow Alzheimer’s Progression, Study Finds
Increasing your steps by even a little bit may help slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease among people at heightened risk, according to a new study.
In a paper published in Nature Medicine, Mass general Brigham researchers found that physical activity was associated with slower rates of cognitive decline in older adults with elevated levels of amyloid-beta, a protein associated with Alzheimer’s.
Cognitive decline was delayed by three years on average for people who walked just 3,000-5,000 steps per day, and by seven years in people who walked 5,000-7,500 steps per day. Sedentary individuals had a substantially faster buildup of tau proteins in the brain and more rapid declines in cognition and daily functioning.
“This sheds light on why some people who appear to be on an Alzheimer’s disease trajectory don’t decline as quickly as others,” said senior author Jasmeer Chhatwal of the Mass General Brigham Department of Neurology. “Lifestyle factors appear to impact the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting that lifestyle changes may slow the emergence of cognitive symptoms if we act early.”
“Lifestyle changes may slow the emergence of cognitive symptoms if we act early.”
The researchers analyzed data from 296 participants aged 50-90 years old in the Harvard Aging Brain Study who were all cognitively unimpaired at the beginning of the study. They used PET brain scans to measure baseline levels of amyloid-beta in plaques and tau in tangles and assessed the participants’ physical activity using waistband pedometers. The participants received annual follow-up cognitive assessments for between two and 14 years (average, 9.3 years),and a subset received repeated PET scans to track changes in tau.
Higher step counts were linked to slower rates of cognitive decline and a slower buildup of tau proteins in participants with elevated baseline levels of amyloid-beta. The researchers’ statistical modeling suggested that most of the physical activity benefits associated with slowing cognitive decline were driven by slower tau buildup. By contrast, in people with low baseline levels of amyloid-beta, there was very little association between step count and cognitive decline.