Work Out Hard to Avoid Dementia
Friday, 16 July 2010 08:36


Work Out Hard to Avoid Dementia

By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: July 15, 2010

HONOLULU -- Unlike heart disease, which can potentially be prevented with moderate exercise, it's more intense physical activity that may stave off dementia, researchers said here.

In an analysis of data from the Framingham Heart Study, patients who reported moderate to heavy physical activity had a significant 45% lower risk of all-cause dementia compared with light exercisers (P=0.003), according to Zaldy S. Tan, MD, of Harvard, and colleagues.

They reported their findings here at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease.

But it's "not necessarily only heavy physical activity that can reduce risk [of dementia]," Tan told MedPage Today. "But we can fairly say at least moderate exercise seems to be protective."

Still, Tan cautioned that it is "premature to say we need to exercise in order to prevent dementia because we don't have that data."

Several epidemiological studies have shown a link between exercise and dementia, although some large cohort studies have not come up with similar conclusions. Yet these had shorter follow-up, and Tan and colleagues wanted to assess older patients -- those who lived into the eighth decade.

"It's worth noting that this group is fairly advanced in age, while other studies have looked at younger patients," Tan said.

So they looked at data from Framingham 1986-1987, which recorded measures of physical activity. Specifically, it included a 24-hour assessment of hours spent performing different tasks and assigning each of those different caloric values.

A total of 1,211 patients, who were followed prospectively for dementia and Alzheimer's, completed follow-up.

During those two decades of follow-up, 242 patients developed either condition.

The researchers found that those who reported moderate to heavy exercise had a decreased risk of developing the condition after adjusting for age and sex (HR 0.55, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.81, P=0.003).

Also those in the lowest quintile of physical activity had a significantly increased risk of dementia compared with those in the higher quintiles (HR 1.45, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.98, P=0.021).

Tan said similar numbers were seen when the results were stratified to Alzheimer's alone.

He noted that some Alzheimer's researchers have shifted their interest from treatment to prevention, but cautioned that such assessment "is still going to be an expensive and long-term endeavor."

Still, an important message is "physical activity can be maintained even late in life," he said, "and we have to remain active even in our old age."

(Go to original article here)
Vitamin E Reduces Alzheimer's Risk

Thursday, July 8, 2010 8:45 AM

By Sylvia Booth Hubbard



High levels of vitamin E in the blood reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in old age, says a new study. Italian and Swedish researchers found that several components of vitamin E helped prevent cognitive deterioration in people 80 years of age and older.

"Vitamin E is a family of eight natural components, but most studies related to Alzheimer's disease investigate only one of these components, tocopherol," Dr. Francesca Mangialasche, who led the study, said in a statement. "We hypothesized that all the vitamin E family members could be important in protecting against AD. If confirmed, this result has implications for both individuals and society, as 70 percent of all dementia cases in the general population occur in people more than 75 years of age, and the study suggests a protective effect of vitamin E against AD in individuals aged 80 plus."

The researchers studied 232 people who were 80 years or older and were free of dementia at the beginning of the study. After six years, they identified 57 cases of Alzheimer's disease.

At the beginning of the study, the blood levels of all eight natural components of vitamin E were measured. People with higher blood levels were compared with those subjects who had lower blood levels. The scientists found that seniors with the higher blood levels of all the forms of vitamin E reduced their risk of developing Alzheimer's by 45 to 54 percent, depending on the levels of specific components.

Mangialasche noted that the protective effect of vitamin E appears to be related to the combination of the different forms. Along this line, another recent study suggested that supplements containing high doses of the tocopherol component of vitamin E may increase mortality, indicating that such dietary supplements, if not balanced in the body, may be more harmful than previously thought.

"Elderly people as a group are large consumers of vitamin E supplements, which usually contain only tocopherol, and this is often at high doses," says Mangialasche. "Our findings need to be confirmed by other studies, but they open up the possibility that the balanced presence of different vitamin E forms can have an important neuroprotective effect."

According to the Alzheimer's Association, 5.3 million Americans have the disease, and it is the seventh leading cause of death.