Exercise Is Best Defense Against Dementia

Apparently, you can do something to stave off dementia, but you have to do it in middle age. A landmark 20-year study conducted by researchers at the University of Melbourne strongly suggests that regular exercise in middle age is the best lifestyle change a person can make to prevent cognitive decline in their later years. A University of Melbourne news release reports that the study, published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, tracked 387 Australian women from the Women’s Healthy Ageing Project for two decades. The researchers made note of their lifestyle factors — including exercise and diet, education, marital and employment status, number of children, physical activity and smoking. They also measured hormone levels, cholesterol, height, weight, body mass index and blood pressure at 11 points throughout the study. The women were given a Verbal Episodic Memory test in which they were asked to learn a list of 10 unrelated words and attempt to recall them 30 minutes later. When measuring the amount of memory loss over 20 years, frequent physical activity, normal blood pressure and high good cholesterol were all strongly associated with better recall. “The message from our study is very simple,” said study author Cassandra Szoeke, director of the Women’s Healthy Ageing Project. “Do more physical activity, it doesn’t matter what, just move more and more often. It helps your heart, your body and prevents obesity and diabetes and now we know it can help your brain.”