Dementia is a neurocognitive disorder that manifests as a steady decline in cognitive function and memory loss. Alzheimer’s disease is a common type of dementia and plagues as many as 6 million people in the United States, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to the World Health Organization (WHO) globally, there are over 55 million Alzheimer patients and it is predicted that the number will rise to around 140 million by 2050.
Although some treatments exist to mitigate the symptoms of the disease, most forms of dementia do not have a cure forcing researchers to continue to work for the development of new prevention strategies and treatments.
Most recently, however, a study published in JAMA Neurology suggests that the number of steps a person takes a day and the intensity of the steps, that is the number of steps taken per minute, have an impact on one’s likelihood of developing dementia.
Around 80,000 participants took part in the study in which they were expected to wear an accelerometer on their wrists for 24 hours a day to measure physical activity. Participants had to do so all 7 days of the week. In the end, data collected from the accelerometer was converted into step counts using an algorithm and the follow-up of the study was conducted after a median of 6.9 years which revealed that only 1.1% of the participants had developed dementia.
It was concluded that a person can reduce their chances of developing dementia simply by increasing the number of steps they take in a day. The most common factors that affect one’s likelihood of developing the syndrome include ethnicity, genetics, and gender- with women more at risk than men. Apart from this lifestyle, preferences such as brain stimulation, physical exertion, and blood pressure also have an impact.
According to the director of AD-CARE at the University of Rochester, Dr. Anton Porsteinsson stated,” Even when started later in life, a healthy approach to diet and mental and physical exertion can make all the difference, you don’t necessarily have to hit the gym aggressively to make a difference.”
These results play a significant part in helping form guidelines for the general public in terms of the amount of physical activity required to reap the maximum possible health benefits. To gain maximum returns, i.e. reducing the likelihood of developing dementia by 50%, around 10,000 steps a day were recommended. People do not necessarily have to treat this as the starting point, even with around 4,000 steps a day, one can reduce their chances of developing the disease by up to 25%.
However, the findings of the study are not applicable to all contexts, this is because the majority of the population sample in the study was racially white and the study failed to find definitive causation between dementia risk and step count. To combat these concerns a further controlled and randomized study is required.
Despite this, the findings of the study cannot be dismissed entirely because the Alzheimer’s Association in the past had conducted an analysis of 11 studies the results of which also showed that controlling alcohol intake, exercising, maintaining healthy body weight, and not smoking has had a significant impact on reducing dementia risk.
