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Gezonde levensstijl en de kans op dementie vermindert sterk.*
Uit een Amerikaanse studie onder ruim 2.600 mensen blijkt dat
een gezonde levensstijl met wat bewegen en gezonde voeding de kans op dementie
sterk kan verminderen van wel 8% tot zelfs 66%, afhankelijk van hoe gezond je
wel leeft.
Unsound
Bodies Lead to Unsound Minds
A
new study ties the lifestyle of the couch potato to dementia in the elderly.
Study
ties couch potato lifestyle to dementia in elderly
If
you needed another reason to get up off the couch and start exercising, a new
study provides one: Along with lowering your risk of heart
disease,
keeping fit and eating healthy foods may also help prevent dementia.
The
study found that older people who have metabolic syndrome, a group of cardiovascular
risk factors, had a 20 percent higher risk of cognitive impairment compared to
people without the syndrome.
"Having
a sharp mind as you age may not be dumb luck, but rather may result from a
combination of factors which you have an active choice in participating
in," said Dr. Peter LeWitt, a neurologist at William Beaumont Hospital in
Royal Oak, Mich. LeWitt was not involved in the study, which appears in the Nov.
issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Metabolic
syndrome doesn't refer to any single type of metabolic disease, but instead to a
specific group of symptoms, including abdominal fat,
Insulin
resistance, high blood
pressure
and elevated cholesterol
levels. As many as one in four Americans has metabolic syndrome, according to
the American Heart Association.
"Metabolic
syndrome is what you might refer to as typical couch potato syndrome. It's
epidemic in the U.S.," said Dr. Corey Goldman, director of vascular
medicine at Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans. "It's a crisis,
actually."
Goldman
explained that when you are overweight and inactive, metabolic changes begin in
the body. Those changes, he said, can then affect the arrangement of blood
vessels in the body and how the body responds to stresses. That means your blood
vessels aren't as reactive to stress
anymore, and your body's response to insulin, which helps your cells get energy,
is also decreased.
Researchers
from the National Institute on Aging, the University of California at San
Francisco, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and the University
of Tennessee at Memphis collaborated on this study of 2,632 people aged 70 to
79.
Fifty-two
percent of the study participants were women, and 40 percent of the group was
black. One quarter of the study volunteers had elevated levels of inflammation.
Slightly
more than 1,000 had metabolic syndrome, while 1,616 did not.
The
researchers evaluated metabolic syndrome factors, levels of inflammation using C-reactive
protein
and interleukin-6, and cognitive status using a mini-mental state examination at
that start of the study. The tests were repeated three years later, and finally
during the fifth year of the study.
Overall,
those with metabolic syndrome had a 20 percent higher risk of developing
cognitive impairment during the study period. People who had high levels of
inflammation and metabolic syndrome fared even worse, with a 66 percent
increased risk of cognitive impairment compared to those without metabolic
syndrome.
Those
with metabolic syndrome and low levels of inflammation had only an 8 percent
increase in their risk of cognitive impairment.
LeWitt
said it's important to realize that the test used in this study is an
"everyday life-oriented battery," and that scoring poorly on this test
would likely mean very obvious cognitive decline.
The
study, while credible and done on a large population, needs to be confirmed with
other studies, according to LeWitt. In the meantime, he said, it's always a good
idea to make healthier diet choices and to get more exercise.
"You
can possibly lower your risk of Alzheimer's
disease
and other cognitive decline by what you do decades before," he said.
Goldman
added, "The treatment of choice for metabolic syndrome is exercise
and weight loss.
While we do have a number of medications that can improve biochemical defects, healthy
living
is probably the most efficient and safest treatment."
The bottom line, said Goldman, is that "if you want to continue life in an enjoyable way, exercise and healthy eating are indispensable." (Dec. 2004)