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...habits of 749 rural Italians over age 65 during a period of four years. At the beginning of the study, none had memory problems; by the last check up, 85 participants had developed some form of dementia - including Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, which is associated with decreased blood flow to the brain...
...development of Alzheimer's - the neurodegenerative disease that accounts for roughly 70% of all cases of dementia - they found a marked impact on the risk of developing vascular dementia, the second most common variation after Alzheimer's. As its name implies, vascular dementia is a condition where restricted blood flow to certain parts of the brain impacts cognitive abilities, affecting the tissue like a series of small strokes...
...study's authors suggest that exercise lowers the risk for cerebrovascular disease by increasing blood flow to the brain; exercise may also enhance the brain's ability to build "functional reserves" against damage by building elasticity in synapses and decreasing the secretion of stress hormones that negatively impact brain tissue. Still, the authors note that like many observational studies, theirs has limitations. It's possible, for example "that exercise, in our study, was a proxy for other, unaccounted for lifestyle habits or environmental influences," says Ravaglia. People who are regularly active are "more likely to be more careful of their...
...Christian B. Flow contributed to the reporting on this story. --Staff writer Noah S. Bloom can be reached at nsbloom@fas.harvard.edu...
...Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu...