Decrease Your Risk of Dementia: Avoid This Type of Activity While Sitting



According to a recent study by researchers from the Universities of Southern California and Arizona, dementia may be more likely to develop in people aged 60 and over who spend a lot of time watching TV or engaging in other passive, sedentary activities.

Additionally, their research showed that the risk is decreased for individuals who perform sitting activities like reading or using a computer.

In the most current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study was published. It also showed that the link between inactivity and the risk of dementia persisted even among people who exercised regularly.

The type of sedentary activity engaged in during free time, rather than the amount of time spent sitting, affects the risk of developing dementia, according to study author David Raichlen, professor of biological sciences and anthropology at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.

When compared to using a computer or reading, watching TV involves less muscle activity and energy consumption, the researcher noted. And while studies have shown that prolonged, uninterrupted sitting is associated with decreased brain blood flow, the relatively higher level of intellectual stimulation experienced while using a computer may mitigate the detrimental consequences of sitting.

Researchers used self-reported data from the U.K. Biobank, a sizable biological database with more than 500,000 individuals throughout the United Kingdom, to examine potential connections between dementia in older adults and sedentary leisure activities.

More than 145,000 adults aged 60 and over without dementia completed touchscreen questionnaires to self-report information on their levels of sedentary behavior over the 2006–2010 baseline assessment period.

In order to discover dementia diagnoses after an average of almost 12 years of follow-up, the researchers examined hospital inpatient data. 3,507 confirmed cases were found.

The researchers then adjusted their findings for a variety of demographic (such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, and kind of job) and lifestyle (such as exercise, smoking and alcohol usage, quantity of sleep, and social interaction) variables that might have an effect on brain health.

The effects of mental and physical activity on risk

Even after the researchers took into account levels of physical activity, the results remained unchanged. Even in people who are very physically active, watching TV while relaxing was linked to a higher risk of dementia, while using a computer while relaxing was linked to a lower risk of dementia.

According to study author Gene Alexander, professor of psychology and director of the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Arizona, "even though we know that physical activity is good for our brain health, many of us think that if we just increase our physical activity during the day, we can counter the negative effects of time spent sitting."

Being more mentally active, such as when using computers, may be a key way to help counter the increased risk of dementia related to more passive sedentary behaviors, like watching TV, according to Alexander's findings, which "suggest that the brain impacts of sitting during our leisure activities are really separate from how physically active we are."

Understanding how sedentary behavior affects human health may result in some benefits.

Raichlen continued, "What we do while we're seated matters. When creating focused public health interventions aiming at lowering the risk of neurodegenerative disease from sedentary behaviors through positive behavior modification, this understanding is essential.

The Arizona Department of Health Services, the McKnight Brain Research Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the state of Arizona all provided funding for the study.

By UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do You Sleep on Your Back or Side? Here's The Research on 'Optimal' Sleep Positions

Image
William Dement, a renowned sleep researcher at Stanford University, is quoted as saying that after 50 years of study, the only reason he can think of for why we sleep is "because we become sleepy." Sleep certainly matters for our health and wellbeing even though it may be, as one researcher put it, "the sole major habit in quest of a function." Do we, however, have it right? What do studies on sleeping positions say? Is there a proper sleeping position? The majority of people favor sleeping on their side. This is encouraging news because people who sleep on their backs are more likely to have trouble falling asleep or breathing during the night. Most of the time, we have a tendency to shift around quite a bit at night. According to a study involving 664 sleepers, on average, participants slept on their side 54% of the time, their back 37% of the time, and their front 7% of the time. Males are more likely to change positions throughout the night and move their arms, ...
Read more

North America’s Rarest Snake Found Dead

Image
The Tantilla oolitica (rim rock crowned snake), the rarest snake in North America, was recently rediscovered in a Florida Keys park after a four-year hiatus. Even though a snake encounter would normally be cause for celebration among conservationists, it was more of a source of astounding wonder than anything else. The snake was found to be dead, fighting a large centipede that it had partially swallowed in a lifeless battle. Experts haven't previously observed the snake's feeding patterns due to the tragic confrontation. T. oolitica is so uncommon that no one knew what it consumed until now, despite the fact that it is well known that closely related species enjoy centipedes. Researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History CT scanned the entangled pair and just published their results in the journal Ecology. Coleman Sheehy, co-author and manager of the herpetology collection at the Florida Museum, remarked, "I was surprised when I first viewed the images. "Sam...
Read more

Breakthrough: Physicists Take Particle Self-Assembly to New Level by Mimicking Biology

Image
A group of physicists have developed a brand-new technique for self-assembling particles. This development offers fresh hope for creating intricate and cutting-edge materials at the tiny scale. Self-assembly, which was developed in the early 2000s, provides scientists with a way to "pre-program" particles, enabling the creation of materials without additional human involvement. This is essentially the smallest version of self-assembling Ikea furniture. The discovery, which was published today, September 28, in the journal Nature, focuses on emulsions—oil droplets dissolved in water—and how they might be used to help foldamers self-assemble. The sequence of droplet interactions can possibly be used to anticipate these particular shapes. Through interactions between blue-blue, blue-yellow, and eventually yellow-yellow droplets, which are all mediated by sticky DNA strands, a chain of alternating blue and yellow droplets folds into a crown shape in microscopy images. The image a...
Read more