Dementia: Reduce Risk By Regularly Performing The Best Exercise

This neurological condition oftentimes affects people who are more than 65 years old. Dementia, however, is not a natural part of the aging process.

Although the progress of the condition cannot be stopped, there are some lifestyle interventions that can help in keeping the brain sharp. This reduces your risk of developing dementia.

Reducing Your Risk

The Alzheimer’s Society revealed that after conducting a study of various lifestyle changes, performing regular physical exercises has shown to have the biggest positive effect. The health organization said that it appears to be among the best ways of reducing the risk of developing dementia. In one study, adults have shown improvements in their vital brain faculties like memory and thinking after doing regular physical exercises.

There is also recent evidence that suggests high-intensity exercises provide a strong defense against worsening brain health. In the study, seniors who regularly perform short bursts of activity showed an improvement of at least 30% in their memory performance. On the other hand, participants who performed moderate exercises saw no improvements at all. The findings of this study were published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.

The Study

The research involved many sedentary but healthy older adults who are aged between 60 and 88. They were then observed for 12 weeks and also joined in three exercise sessions each week. Some of them did high-intensity interval training or HIIT. Others performed moderate-intensity continuous training or MICT. A separate control only performed some stretching activities.

The HIIT exercise involved four sets of a four-minute high-intensity treadmill exercise. A recovery period followed. MICT exercises, on the other hand, involved one set of moderate-intensity aerobic activity that lasted 50 minutes.

Researchers found that older adults who belong in the HIIT group enjoyed a considerable increase in high-interference memory when compared to the MICT group or the control group. Jennifer Heisz, the study’s lead author and an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University, said their study showed that intervention is needed to lower dementia risk. She also observed that it was only recently that changes in lifestyle had been appreciated. The biggest modifying risk factor, as it turned out, is physical activity.