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Brisk daily walk or bike ride may reduce risk of Alzheimer’s

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Senior couple on a power walk on a beautiful spring day out in the field.

By Mark Waghorn via SWNS

A daily brisk walk or bike ride may reduce older people's risk of Alzheimer's disease, according to new research.

Physical activity dampens inflammation in the brain - protecting against mental decline, say scientists.

Lead author Dr. Kaitlin Casaletto, of the University of California, San Francisco, said: "No one will disagree that an active lifestyle is good for you.

"But it remains unclear how physical activity improves brain health, particularly in Alzheimer's disease.

"The benefits may come about through decreased immune cell activation."

Senior Asian father and middle-aged son walk in the park, man caregiver helping patient, Happiness Asian family concepts
Doctors recommend at least 150 or 75 minutes of moderate or vigorous aerobic activity a week (Shutterstock)

About 5.8 million people in the United States have Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, according to the CDC.

The number of people with the condition is steadily increasing because of increased longevity.

It is estimated in the next three decades cases worldwide will triple to more than 150 million.

With no cure in sight, lifestyle changes that can help ward it off are vital.

Dr. Casaletto said: "Microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells, activate to clear debris and foreign invaders from the brain.

"But too much activation can trigger inflammation, damage neurons, and disrupt brain signaling.

"Exercise helps reduce abnormal activation in animals - but that link hadn’t been established in humans."

The study, published in JNeurosci, found exercise had the greatest benefits for those with worse disease pathology.

Dr. Casaletto and colleagues tracked 167 older adults to examine the relationship between physical activity and microglia activation.

They were from the Rush Memory and Aging project which enrolls volunteers without dementia who agree to organ donation.

The participants spanned the spectrum of cognitive aging. They wore activity monitors 24 hours a day for up to ten days straight before annual cognitive exams.

The researchers measured microglia activation and Alzheimer's disease pathology in postmortem brain tissue analyses.

Dr. Casaletto said: "Greater physical activity was linked to lower microglial activation.

"This was particularly in the inferior temporal gyrus - a brain region hit hardest by Alzheimer's.

"Physical activity had a more pronounced effect on inflammation in people with more severe Alzheimer's pathology."

She next plans to examine if exercise interventions can alter microglia activation in AD patients.

Dr. Casaletto added: "Physical activity relates to better cognitive aging and reduced risk of neurodegenerative disease.

"Yet the cellular and molecular pathways linking behavior-to-brain in humans are unknown.

"We objectively monitored physical activity and cognitive performances in life and quantified microglial activation and synaptic markers in brain tissue at death in older adults.

"These are the first data supporting microglial activation as a physiological pathway by which physical activity relates to brain health in humans.

"Though more interventional work is needed, we suggest physical activity may be a modifiable behavior leveraged to reduce pro-inflammatory microglial states in humans."

For healthy adults, doctors recommend at least 150 or 75 minutes of moderate or vigorous aerobic activity, respectively, a week.

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