Next time you’re tempted to skip the gym or indulge in that extra doughnut in the office break room, think about your future self.
A healthy lifestyle may help prevent mental decline later in life, a European study suggests. Conversely, poor heart health and a high Body Mass Index (BMI) are linked to increased risk of age-related dementia and cognitive decline, say the authors of the study published in the March 12 edition of The Lancet.
Healthy bodies mean healthy brains
Researchers led by Miia Kivipelto, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, followed 1,260 Finnish adults ages 60 to 77 deemed at high risk for age-related dementia. They were divided into two groups ““ one receiving health advice materials to be read or studied on their own (the control group) and one receiving direct intervention, including meeting regularly health professionals who provided advice on healthy eating, strength and heart-healthy exercise, brain training programs and management of metabolic and circulatory risk factors for dementia.
After two years, the adults in the intervention group scored 25 percent higher overall on a standardized test measuring mental function than the adults in the control group, researchers found.
Thinking better and faster
There were striking differences in some categories, researchers said: People in the intervention group scored 150 percent higher in mental processing speed and 83 percent higher in their ability to organize and regulate thought processes.
“Much previous research has shown that there are links between [thinking]decline in older people and factors such as diet, heart health and fitness. However, our study is the first large randomized, controlled trial to show that an intensive program aimed at addressing these risk factors might be able to prevent decline in elderly people who are at risk of dementia,” Kivipelto said in a press release from The Lancet.
The study, she stressed, found a link between healthy lifestyle and cognitive function, but didn’t show a cause-and-effect relationship.
Kivipelto and her colleagues will continue to follow the adults in the intervention group for at least seven years to see if their slower mental decline results in a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
