Your brain will thank you for working out at the gym and eating plenty of fruits, vegetables and olive oil. A recent study suggests you could significantly cut your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease if you’re more physically active and eat a Mediterranean-style diet.
In fact, a combination of exercise and a Mediterranean-type diet were far more effective in lowering your risk of Alzheimer’s than exercise or diet alone.
“This study is important because it shows that people may be able to alter their risk of developing Alzheimer’s by modifying their lifestyles through diet and exercise,” said Nikos Scarmeas, lead author of the study and associate professor of clinical neurology at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York.
Past studies have looked separately at the link between Alzheimer’s and either physical activity or diet. This study, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined exercise and diet together.
“Often people who exercise also follow a healthy diet and vice versa,” said Scarmeas. “We wanted to tease out which of these two behaviors may be associated with lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease,” or if the combination of the two is associated with an even lower risk.”
The study looked at 1,880 elderly subjects, with an average age of 77, living in northern Manhattan.
The participants were interviewed about their level of physical activity – jogging, biking, hiking, and gardening, for example – and their dietary habits. They were observed over about 5-1/2 years, receiving periodic tests.
Those subjects who were very physically active had a 33% reduction in the risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Those who adhered more strongly to a Mediterranean-type diet had a 40% risk reduction.
And for the clincher: those who reported they were exercising a lot and following a diet closer to the Mediterranean-type had a 60% risk reduction.
“So it seemed that the more that they were doing in terms of both diet and exercise, the lower was their risk for the disease,” said Scarmeas.
It wasn’t exactly clear which foods in the Mediterranean diet delivered the most benefits. Scarmeas said it could be individual components – or the interaction among the various foods.
Bon appétit,
Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch
