There are several studies on dementias that have suggested the same thing: physical and mental exercise is associated with a lower risk of some of these diseases.
Now, a new job throws another good news: doing physical activity and keeping the mind active is related to a slower cognitive decline in people with frontotemporal dementia, even in those who are predisposed to suffer from it Due to their genes.
Frontotemporal dementia is a group of Alzheimer-like diseases that affect personality, behavior and speech. Another feature is that they appear early, between 45 and 65 years.
The new research, led by academics at the University of California, in San Francisco, found that people with the disease who were genetically vulnerable to it, but who performed physical and mental exercise, had a much slower cognitive decline and function twice better compared to sedentary patients.
“There may not be a predestined trajectory when it comes to brain health,” says Kaitlin Casaletto, a professor of neurology at the University of California, who led the study.
“Our results support the idea that even people with a very high risk of dementia, due to their genes, can improve their brain health with lifestyle changes,” says Casaletto, whose work is published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia .
There the research group describes how they studied 105 people with genetic mutations that predispose them to frontotemporal dementia and who already had signs of the disease.
All were surveyed about their physical and mental exercise habits and underwent scanners to see the progression of the pathology.
After two years of evaluations, they showed that cognitive impairment was 55% slower in more active patients compared to less active patients. In addition, the former performed twice as well in different types of tests.
According to Casaletto, previous studies suggest that almost any physical activity can benefit, from walking to vigorous aerobic exercise, such as swimming or cycling. Regarding mental activity, science is less conclusive, he says.
However, it is likely that performing activities focused on decision making, such as putting together puzzles or playing a sport, will be useful. This is what Álvaro Ardiles, Researcher at the Center for Neurosciences at the University of Valparaíso comments.
“Frontotemporal dementia affects language and decision making, so it is believed that exercising brain structures related to those functions would be positive,” explains the academic.
The mechanisms by which these habits seem to help is something that scientists are still studying, but Casaletto says that today there are some clues.
“In humans, it has been seen that the more physical and cognitive activity there is more gray matter and better connections in white matter, which is related to better cognitive performance,” he says.
And he points out: “What we hope is that our results make people understand that they have more control of their brain than they imagine.”
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