{"id":43354,"date":"2025-08-04T13:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T13:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/43354\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T13:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T13:52:14","slug":"exercise-and-socialising-can-help-people-at-risk-of-dementia-large-scale-study-finds-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/43354\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercise and socialising can help people at risk of dementia, large-scale study finds \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A combination of healthy activities including exercise<\/a>, nutritious diet, computer brain games and socialising<\/a> can improve cognitive performance in people at risk for dementia<\/a>, according to a large new US study.<\/p>\n

The study, conducted in five locations across the US<\/a> over two years, is the biggest randomised trial to examine whether healthy behaviours protect brain health.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt confirms that paying attention to things like physical activity and vascular risk factors and diet are all really important ways to maintain brain health,\u201d said Dr Kristine Yaffe, an expert in cognitive ageing at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n

The results were presented last week at the Alzheimer\u2019s Association International Conference in Toronto and published in the journal JAMA.<\/p>\n

The study involved 2,111 people, aged 60 to 79, from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. None were cognitively impaired. All had sedentary lifestyles, suboptimal diets and two other dementia risk factors, such as a family history of cognitive decline and high blood pressure.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Alzheimer\u2019s: \u2018I\u2019ve lost my friend and my companion,\u2019 says \u00dana Crawford O\u2019Brien of fellow Fair City actor Bryan MurrayOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Half of the participants followed a structured programme. They were prescribed a healthy diet, socially engaging activities, and a weekly regimen of eight exercise sessions and three sessions of computerised cognitive training. They attended 38 meetings with facilitators and fellow participants.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe study is the biggest randomised trial to examine whether healthy behaviours protect brain health. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n

The other participants followed a self-guided programme. They were given educational materials and resources, and were regularly encouraged to engage in healthy behaviours. They attended six team meetings during the study.<\/p>\n

Cognitive scores for both groups improved considerably, with the high-intensity group improving somewhat more than the other group. \u201cThe structured intervention had an extra benefit over and above the self-guided,\u201d said Laura Baker, a professor of gerontology, geriatrics and internal medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and a principal investigator of the study.<\/p>\n

Still, the study left many questions unanswered.<\/p>\n

We should have more aggressive targeting of interventions for people who have lower cognition, who are more at risk, and less intense or less expensive interventions for those with higher cognition<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Kaarin Anstey<\/p>\n

Dr Lon Schneider, an Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a> expert at the University of Southern California and a member of the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, was impressed that \u201cboth groups improved quite significantly\u201d. But he noted that the difference in performance between the high-intensity and self-guided groups was \u201cvery small\u201d, raising questions about how beneficial an intensive programme truly was.<\/p>\n

It was also unclear how much of the cognitive improvement reflected a \u201cpractice effect\u201d, a common phenomenon whereby participants learn to do better on assessments simply by taking them several times, Schneider and other experts said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis does not demonstrate that any of the lifestyle changes in and of themselves, or the combination of them, is responsible for this level of improvement,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cOr that it is necessarily related to neurodegeneration or Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results cannot be compared with the general population, as the study did not include a group that received no intervention. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t believe that it was ethical\u201d to have a \u201cgroup that would not get anything\u201d, said Heather M Snyder, senior vice-president for medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer\u2019s Association, which spent $50 million as the lead funder of the study.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Irish study to assess dementia risk from sports-related brain injury in 360 retired athletesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Baker said that even if the structured intervention was only modestly more effective than the self-guided one, \u201cI don\u2019t think we can say a small difference for an at-risk group is not meaningful.\u201d She estimated that, compared with the self-guided group, the structured intervention \u201cslowed the cognitive ageing clock by one to two years\u201d, which might \u201cincrease resilience against cognitive decline\u201d.<\/p>\n

But several outside experts said that estimating any real-world advantage was difficult. They also questioned whether many people could realistically adopt an intense programme.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dementia diagnosis \u2018a very lonely experience at first\u2019: advocacy group calls for counselling supportOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the big questions is how much do you need to do, and what\u2019s cost-effective,\u201d said Kaarin Anstey, director of the Ageing Futures Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia. \u201cIf we only have very intensive interventions only a few people can afford, that\u2019s not actually going to address the bigger issue of population ageing and lots of people developing cognitive impairment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study, called US POINTER, was modelled after the first large randomised trial of lifestyle changes, called FINGER and conducted in Finland a dozen years ago. That study\u2019s intensive group showed 25 per cent greater cognitive improvement than a group receiving minimal intervention.<\/p>\n

The goal was to \u201csee if it can work\u201d in a more diverse nation with different health and lifestyle issues, Baker said.<\/p>\n

The participants lived in North Carolina, Rhode Island, northern California, Houston and Chicago. More than two-thirds were women and 31 per cent were from racial or ethnic minority groups. <\/p>\n

Most had first-degree relatives with memory loss, and 30 per cent had the APOE4 gene mutation, which increases Alzheimer\u2019s risk. All of those subgroups experienced the same degree of cognitive improvement.<\/p>\n

Most people participated for the full two years, an indication that they were highly motivated whether or not they received intensive supervision.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe study found that participants who started with lower cognitive scores benefited more. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n

Phyllis Jones (66) of Aurora, Illinois, enrolled partly because her mother and grandmother had suffered from vascular dementia. Before the study, she said, stress from being laid off from a software engineering position and other job difficulties sent her to the emergency room with blurry vision and a racing heart. \u201cI was in really bad shape,\u201d Jones said. Participating in the structured intervention \u201cwoke me up\u201d.<\/p>\n

At first, just 10 minutes of aerobics was exhausting, but she now exercises daily and has lost 30lb, she said. Buoyed by social support from the peer meetings, she found a new job as a software tester. <\/p>\n

She befriended another participant, Patty Kelly (81). They encouraged each other, and Kelly overhauled her own diet, sharply limiting sweets, cheese and fried food.<\/p>\n

Both women perceived some cognitive benefit, although they have not been told their scores. Jones felt more able to plan home projects and follow messaging chains at work. Kelly, who retired from a non-profit serving homeless families, said her driving had improved. \u201cI don\u2019t run into the side of the garage any more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The computer brain games were \u201cthe hardest thing for us to get on board with\u201d, Jones said. That was true for other participants, too, Baker said. \u201cIs it practical to expect people to do this day after day?\u201d Baker said about computerised brain training. \u201cBased on our experience, I\u2019m going to say no.\u201d But she said that any kind of intellectual stimulation could be helpful.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Mobility issues? Here is a short workout you can do in a chairOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Since the trial ended last year, Jones has maintained many practices, she said, but found herself backsliding with sugar, and her cholesterol climbed. \u201cI think the structure is important, the accountability,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The study found that participants who started with lower cognitive scores benefited more. It is unclear why, Anstey said, but could suggest that \u201cwe should have more aggressive targeting of interventions for people who have lower cognition, who are more at risk, and less intense or less expensive interventions for those with higher cognition\u201d.<\/p>\n

For both groups, the biggest cognitive improvement involved executive function \u2013 skills like planning and organising. Memory initially improved in both groups, but then declined, with no significant difference in the groups\u2019 ultimate memory scores. Memory loss is a core Alzheimer\u2019s symptom, Yaffe noted, so cognitive improvements in the trial were likely \u201cless related to Alzheimer\u2019s disease and more related to vascular changes in the brain\u201d.<\/p>\n

The researchers will analyse blood, brain scans and other data to see if the activities spurred brain changes, reductions in Alzheimer\u2019s-related proteins or other biological factors, Snyder said. The US Alzheimer\u2019s Association will spend $40 million to follow the participants and help communities adopt locally tailored programmes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now need to translate this and to turn brain health interventions into public health outcomes and solutions,\u201d Snyder said. \u2013 This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A combination of healthy activities including exercise, nutritious diet, computer brain games and socialising can improve cognitive performance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[3557,6647,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-43354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-alzheimers","9":"tag-fitness","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}