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A study that followed 30,000 adults for over ten years revealed that there are six habits associated with healthy living that can significantly reduce memory loss in old age.
The results showed that older adults who have four to six healthy habits could reduce the risk of developing dementiaeven when they carry genes that make them more susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease.
This research, recently published in BMJsought to quantify the impact of various healthy lifestyle factors on age-related memory decline.
Six factors of a healthy lifestyle were evaluated: balanced diet, regular exerciseactive social contact, active cognitive activity, not drinking alcohol and not being a smoker.
“Participants were placed in the favorable group if they had four to six healthy lifestyle factors, in the medium group if they had two to three factors, and in the unfavorable group if they had between one and zero factors,” explained the authors in the study.
The results revealed that participants in the favorable group demonstrated rates of significantly slower memory decline over the ten-year period, compared to participants in the average or unfavorable groups.
The investigators also found that the favorable group was 90% less likely to develop dementia compared to the unfavorable group. Participants in the middle group were 30% less likely to develop the disease.
The team noted that the study was not aimed at finding out which factor was most important among the six for preventing dementia. However, a decomposition of the data indicated that a balanced diet conferred greater effectfollowed by active cognitive activity and regular physical exercise.
About 20% of participants had a specific genetic variant known to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. In this group, combining various healthy lifestyle behaviors also slowed the rate of memory decline, suggesting that benefits can be gained from lifestyle changes.
“While each healthy lifestyle factor has contributed differently to slow down memory decline, our results showed that participants who maintained more healthy lifestyle factors experienced significantly slower memory decline,” the authors concluded.
ZAP // 
