Walking can reduce dementia risk; know how many steps to take a day

Want to reduce your risk of dementia? Slap a counter and start calculating your steps — you’ll need between 3,800 and 9,800 a day to reduce your risk of mental decline, according to a new study.

People aged between 40 and 79 who took 9,826 steps a day were 50% less likely to develop dementia at seven years, the study found. Furthermore, people who walked with “purpose” – at a pace greater than 40 steps per minute – were able to reduce their risk of dementia by 57% with just 6,315 steps per day.

“It’s a brisk walking activity, like a power walk,” said study co-author Borja del Pozo Cruz, an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, and a senior researcher in health sciences at the University of Cádiz, Spain. .

Even people who walked approximately 3,800 steps a day at any speed reduced their risk of dementia by 25%, the study found.

“This would be sufficient, in principle, for sedentary individuals,” del Pozo Cruz said in an email.

“It’s actually a message that clinicians can use to motivate very sedentary seniors – 4,000 steps is very doable for many, even those who are less fit or not feeling very motivated,” he added. “Perhaps more active and fit individuals should aim for 10,000, where we see the maximum effects.”

But there was an even more interesting result hidden in the study, according to a editorial published this Tuesday (6) in JAMA Neurology.

The biggest reduction in dementia risk – 62% – was achieved by people who walked at a very fast pace of 112 steps per minute for 30 minutes a day, the study found. Previous research has labeled 100 steps per minute (about 4.3 kilometers per hour) as a “live” or moderate intensity level.

The editorial argued that individuals looking to reduce their risk of dementia focus on the pace of walking over the distance covered.

“While 112 steps/min is a fairly fast cadence, ‘112’ is conceivably a much more acceptable and less intimidating number for most individuals than ‘10,000’, especially if they are physically inactive or inactive,” they wrote in the editorial. researchers Ozioma Okonkwo and Elizabeth Planalp, who study Alzheimer’s.

Okonkwo is an associate professor in the department of medicine at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Planalp is a scientist in Okonkwo’s lab.

“We agree that this is a very interesting finding,” Cruz said by email. “Our opinion is that the intensity of the steps matters! Above the volume. The technology can be used to track not just the number of steps, but also the pace, and so these types of metrics can also be incorporated into commercial watches. More research is needed on this.”

Don’t have a step counter? You can count the number of steps you take in 10 seconds and then multiply it by six — or the number of steps you take in six seconds and multiply by 10. Either way it works.

But remember, not all steps are the same length, nor are your fitness levels. What might be fast paced for a 40-year-old might not be sustainable for a 70-year-old.

Editor’s Note: Before starting any new exercise program, consult your physician. Stop immediately if you feel pain.

Inside the study

The study, also published Tuesday in JAMA Neurology, analyzed data from more than 78,000 people ages 40 to 79 who wore wrist accelerometers.

The researchers counted each person’s total number of steps per day and then sorted them into two categories: less than 40 steps per minute — which is more of a walk, like when you’re walking from room to room — and more. 40 steps per minute, or the so-called “intentional” walk.

The researchers also looked at the best performers — those who took the most steps in 30 minutes over the course of a day (although those 30 minutes didn’t have to be on the same walk).

The researchers then compared the steps taken with diagnosing dementia of any type seven years later. After controlling for age, ethnicity, education, sex, socio-emotional status, and how many days of accelerometer use, the researchers also considered lifestyle variables such as poor diet, smoking, alcohol use, medication use, problems of sleep and history of cardiovascular diseases.

The study had some limitations, the authors point out — it was observational only, so it could not establish a direct cause and effect between walking and a lower risk of dementia. Furthermore, “the age range of participants may have resulted in limited cases of dementia, which means our results may not be generalizable to older populations,” the study said.

“As there are often considerable delays in the diagnosis of dementia, and this study did not include formal clinical and cognitive assessments of dementia, it is possible that the prevalence of dementia in the community was much higher,” the authors added.

Although I agree that the findings cannot be interpreted as a direct cause and effect “the growing evidence in support of benefits of physical activity to maintain optimal brain health can no longer be disregarded,” Okonkwo and Planalp wrote.

“It’s time physical inactivity management was considered an intrinsic part of routine primary care visits for older adults,” they added.

Search sum

In fact, recent research published in July indicated that many leisure activities, such as housework, exercise, classes, and visiting family and friends, affected the risk of dementia in middle-aged people.

Adults highly engaged in physical activity, such as frequent exercise, had a 35% lower risk of developing dementia compared with people less engaged in these activities, the researchers found.

Doing housework regularly reduced the risk by 21%, while daily visits with family and friends reduced the risk of dementia by 15%, compared to less engaged people.

Everyone in the study benefited from the protective effect of physical and mental activities, regardless of whether or not they had a family history of dementia, the researchers found.

Another study published in January found that exercise can delay dementia in active seniors whose brains already showed signs of plaque, tangles and other hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive disorders.

That study found that exercise increases levels of a protein known to strengthen communication between brain cells through synapses, which could be a key factor in keeping dementia at bay.

“Dementia is largely preventable,” Cruz said. “Physical activity as well as other lifestyle behaviors such as not drinking and smoking, maintaining a healthy diet, weight and sleep can put you on the right path to avoiding dementia.”