Physical activity would fight Alzheimer's disease

These studies were presented by Ozioma Okonkwo, of the University of Wisconsin, at the recent annual conference of the American Psychology Association.

The first study seems to show that the brains of physically active people use glucose more effectively than that of sedentary people. Glucose is essentially the fuel of the brain, and its consumption is a good indirect indicator of the activity of different brain regions.

Okonkwo recruited 23 sedentary subjects at high risk of suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Eleven of them were given a six-month training program to improve their aerobic health and the rest served as controls. After six months, members of the first group metabolized glucose more effectively than others, and their performance on cognitive function tests was better.

It's still interesting, because increased use of glucose would mean that neurons are healthier or that the glucose supply from the vascular system is better, commented Professor Louis-Eric Trudeau, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of Montreal. There can be many positive effects of exercise either directly on the neurons or on the vascular system.

The second study presented by Dr. Okonkwo and colleagues found that people with good aerobic health had fewer biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease than others. Finally, the latest study showed apparently healthier neurons in healthy aerobic subjects.

Professor Okonkwo is expanding studies that explore the protective effect of physical activity on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

His body of work suggests that physical activity has a significant impact on the biological processes responsible for Alzheimer's disease and that they are even able to counteract – or at least mitigate – risk as powerful as genetics and aging.

We can see it in several neurodegenerative diseases: physical activity seems to have a protective effect, to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease, but also of Parkinson's disease, and so this is one more reason to motivate us to change our way of life

For drugs, there is always a desired therapeutic effect, then there are side effects that are the price to pay for using the drugs. In terms of regular physical activity, there are almost no disadvantages, and there are benefits that can be seen in many diseasessays Professor Trudeau.

And even if medicine does not understand exactly yet how regular physical activity can improve so much in our physiology, he continues, overall it is clear that it works: several types of fitness protocols help people to progress at the cognitive level.