Protect brain from Alzheimer's
September 10th 2010 22:23
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We all know that staying physically active is healthy -- it reduces the need for medications and can cut down the risk of heart disease, stroke and obesity.
It may also be very good for your brain, according to a Cleveland Clinic study published online Aug. 27 that examined the effect of exercise on brain activity in Alzheimer's patients.
"We've been able to show that physical activity has a direct impact on brain activity in regions that are most vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Stephen Rao, lead researcher and director of the Schey Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Clinic.
In the study, researchers took brain scans of two groups of people -- those who carry a gene that confers a high risk of the disease, called APOE-e4, and those who did not have the gene. Those groups were then split into those who reported that they exercised a lot, and those who exercised very little or not at all.
Those who exercised showed greater brain activity in areas related to memory than those who did not, and the association was particularly marked in the subjects who were at high risk of the disease.
"It was a very significant difference, and it suggests that that having a lot of [brain] activity, especially if you're at risk for Alzheimer's is a protective thing, it's a good thing," Rao said.
The findings provide strong support, albeit from a small group of people, that a lifestyle change like increased exercise may have a protective effect against Alzheimer's.
That would be welcome news in a field where existing medical treatments work only modestly well to mitigate symptoms for a short period of time.
Previous research has shown that people who are physically active have better cognitive performance, but it remains unclear exactly how the two are related. Rao believes that exercise may help the brain build up a sort of "reserve" that allows a compromised brain to work overtime to make up for its dwindling capacity.
Rao observed this brain "hyperactivity" in scans of Alzheimer's patients in his team's earlier research, finding that people who were cognitively normal but at risk for the disease had higher brain activity in areas related to memory. They have since found that the more active the brain, the better the outcome for the patient.
In much the same way that exercise builds up the oxygen capacity of the lungs to let you run faster and longer, it seems to also allow the brain to work harder when it needs to.
When the brain starts to lose function because of the onset of Alzheimer's, "those changes may be going on but they don't become symptomatic for a while because there is still a lot more reserve that you can draw upon in order to be able to function normally," Rao said.
The next step, Rao said, will be to see if exercise can protect people who are at risk of Alzheimer's from declining cognitive function over time in a clinical trial setting. They are recruiting for the study, which will pit exercise against cognitive training for patients who are at risk of the disease and are currently inactive and not showing signs of memory loss.
"Ultimately what we're interested in is if these lifestyle interventions can make a difference towards slowing the progression to Alzheimer's disease," Rao said.
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