Physical and Mental Activity, Disease Susceptibility, and Risk of Dementia

Abstract

Background and objectivesThe association between patterns of physical/mental activity and dementia and how it is affected by disease susceptibility remains unknown. We aimed to examine the association between patterns of physical and mental activity and dementia, and whether it can be modified by disease susceptibility to dementia.MethodsIn a prospective cohort study based on UK Biobank, 501,376 dementia-free participants were recruited in 2006-2010 and followed from one year after the recruitment date until the end of 2019 for ascertainment of dementia. Data on physical (i.e., physical activity at leisure time, housework-related activity, and transportation) and mental (i.e., intelligence, social contact, and use of electronic device) activity were collected using questionnaires at recruitment. Cox models were used to estimate the associations of physical and mental activity-related items, as well as major activity patterns identified by principal component analysis, with the risk of dementia, adjusted for multiple confounders. The modification role of disease susceptibility on such associations was assessed through stratified analyses by polygenic risk score (PRS) of dementia generated based on summary statistics of independent genome-wide association studies, by apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype, and by self-reported family history of dementia. ResultsThe mean age at recruitment was 56.53, and 45.60 % of the participants were male. During a mean follow-up of 10.66 years, 5,185 dementia cases were identified. When analyzed separately, multiple studied items related to physical and mental activity showed significant associations with the risk of dementia. The pattern analyses revealed that higher level of adherence to activity patterns related to frequent vigorous and other exercises (hazard ratio [HR]=0.65, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.59-0.71), housework-related activity (0.79, 0.72-0.85) and friend/family visit (0.85, 0.75-0.96) were associated with a lower risk of dementia. We obtained comparable results for vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease as well as in the stratified analyses by PRS for dementia, APOE genotype, or family history of dementia.ConclusionsActivity patterns more adherent to frequent vigorous and other exercises, housework-related activity, and friend/family visit were associated with a reduced risk of multiple types of dementia. Such associations are independent of disease susceptibility, highlighting the potential of these physical and mental activity patterns, as effective interventions, in the primary prevention of dementia.

Poor Cognitive Agility Conservation in Obese Aging People

“…Previous clinical and basic studies have shown that suffering from metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity may be involved in the development of dementia [6,[33][34][35]. Our findings support the existence of a relationship between anthropometric composition and an excess of body fat with cognitive preservation in cognitively healthy people over 60 years of age.…”

“…This fact could be also explained due to the visible deficit in muscle mass in the group with lower cognitive score. In any case, physical activity has been shown to be a great tool in preserving cognitive status and preventing dementia [35,47].…”

Associations of physical activity intensity with incident cardiovascular diseases and mortality among 366,566 UK adults

“…The present study included demographic characteristics (age, sex [male or female]), sociodemographic characteristics (education [college/university or below college], income [< 18,000 or 18,000-52,000 or ≥ 52,000 ￡/year] [18], race [white or others], Townsend index), lifestyle factors (smoking status [never or current or former], alcohol consumption [0 or 0.1-30 or ≥ 30 g/day] [19,20], diet quality score [see Additional file 3], sedentary behavior [hours/day] and MVPA [MET-minutes/week]), body mass index (BMI, kg/m 2 ) and family history of CVD (yes or no) as covariates according to previous studies on similar topic [5,7,17]. Missing indicator approach was used in the regression model by coding missingness as a dummy variable.…”

Investigating the factors that explain white matter hyperintensity load in older Indians

“…Prospective studies of older adults have shown that cardiovascular fitness is associated with both increased grey and white matter volume 41 and white matter integrity, 42 suggesting a neuroprotective effect of physical activity. 43 Alternatively, the damaged white matter may lead to reduced physical activity via impaired mobility, gait or balance dysfunction as well as reduced cognitive ability, suggesting reverse causality. 44 , 45 Accounting for such reverse causality by additionally controlling for concurrent neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment did not substantially impact our findings.…”