A recent study from China on 29,000 individuals followed for 10 years beginning at age 72 looked at the mental decline and its association with six risk factors which could be modifiable according to lifestyle. They are:
- Physical activity, frequency and total time
- Smoking: current, former or never smokers
- Alcohol consumption, scaled from never drinking to heavy drinking
- Diet: fruits, vegetables, nuts, meat, fish
- Cognitive activity: writing, reading, playing cards and games
- Social contact and interactions
The results are interesting in that healthy diet had the highest correlation with a protective effect and not drinking alcohol was associated with the least protective decline.
In summary, the six risk factors with increasing protective affect ranked from best to worst were healthy diet, active cognitive activity, regular physical exercise, active social contact, never or former smoking, and never drinking. Even though the lower important risk factors were not as protective as the higher ones, they were still more protective than none at all. Also, those patients reporting more of the healthy factors had the best results.
Another interesting result: individuals with the APOE4 gene (which is highly associated with dementia) had a slower onset of dementia when adopting a healthy lifestyle.
So, how do you want to spend your day at age 82? Pickleball or having someone wipe up your drool?
Dr. Charlie Barnett is a contributor at KnoxTNToday for a weekly column, DocTalk, providing his expertise on health and wellness management.
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