Physical activity is one of the things that health experts most recommend to all their patients, not only because it helps maintain a stable weight, but also because it brings other benefits to the body, helping it to stay young and healthy.
Exercise helps prevent non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and even diabetes. In fact, some studies have shown that exercise helps protect brain cells.. These studies published in the health journal Neurologyshowed that the practice of exercise helps to avoid dementia.
It should be noted that dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs as a result of certain diseases and that affects memory, thought, language, judgment and behavior, according to the United States National Library of Medicine.
This condition usually occurs at an advanced age and therefore it is rare to see it in people under 60 years of age. “The risk of suffering from it increases as a person ages”, specifies the aforementioned institution.
According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), dementia affects around 50 million people worldwide, of whom around 60% live in low- and middle-income countries.
The study Role of Cardiovascular Risk Factors on the Association Between Physical Activity and Brain Integrity Markers in Older Adults, points out that exercise protects brain cells, so according to Géraldine Poisnel, of the Inserm Research Center in France, the results of the study they can guide experts to create strategies to prevent or delay the disease, especially strategies that take care of thinking skills and memory.
The study involved 134 people with an average age of 69 years. These people had no memory problems and were called to complete a series of surveys about their physical activity in the past year. In addition, they underwent brain scanning to measure volume and glucose metabolism.
Using data on body mass index and levels of insulin, cholesterol, blood pressure, and other factors, it was determined that people with the most physical activity had a higher total volume of gray matter in the brain than people with the least. physical activity.
When the experts analyzed the brain areas affected by Alzheimer’s disease, they found the same results. In that sense, they explained that those people with greater physical activity had a higher average rate of glucose metabolism in the brain than those who did not perform the same amount.
In this sense, one of the conclusions is that exercise can prevent some mental health diseases, such as dementia and certain types of oncological pathologies.
The expert Carmen Terrón, coordinator of the Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Unit at Hospital Nuestra Señora del Rosario, and María S. Manzano Palomo, neurologist at Hospital Infanta Leonor in Madrid, also pointed out that physical inactivity and sedentary behavior is one of the main risk factors for dementia, to the point of increasing the risk by up to 30%.
The experts pointed out that the twelve currently established modifiable risk factors for dementia would be responsible for 40% of dementia cases Or, put another way, “if a dementia prevention plan were put in place, 40% of cases could be avoided or delayed”.
“This makes physical activity a protective factor against the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.as well as against cerebrovascular pathology, in addition to having a positive effect on health and quality of life”, assured the neurologist.