February 2, 2023 – A latest study suggests that a healthy lifestyle is related to slower memory loss in older adults, even in individuals with the apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) gene, one among the strongest known risk aspects for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
A team of researchers in China analyzed 10-year data from over 29,000 older adults with a mean age of 72. One fifth of them were carriers of APOE4 Gene.
The researchers created a healthy lifestyle rating by assessing the intensity of participants' engagement in six activities: healthy eating, regular exercise, energetic social contacts, cognitive activity, not smoking and avoiding alcohol. Participants were divided into “favorable,” “average” and “unfavorable” lifestyle groups.
After controlling for health, economic and social aspects, the researchers found that every individual health-promoting behavior was related to a slower than average decline in memory performance over the last decade. A healthy food plan was found to be essentially the most protective factor, followed by cognitive activity after which physical activity.
People with a “cheap” or “average” lifestyle showed slower memory loss, no matter whether or not they had the APOE4 program or not. Gene.
“A healthy lifestyle is associated with slower memory loss, even in the presence of the APOE4 allele,” wrote Jianping Jia, MD, PhD, of the Innovation Center for Neurological Disorders and the Department of Neurology, Xuan Wu Hospital, Capital Medical University in Beijing, China, and coauthors.
“This study may provide important information to protect older adults from memory loss,” they wrote.
The study was published online on January 25 in BMJ.
Senior moments?
Memory “continuously declines with age,” but age-related memory loss doesn't necessarily mean that the person will develop dementia, the authors say.
Factors that affect memory include aging, APOE4 Genotype, chronic diseases and lifestyle patterns. In particular, the role of lifestyle is “receiving increasing attention” because, unlike an individual’s genes or specific health conditions, lifestyle will be modified.
The researchers wanted to grasp the role that a healthy lifestyle plays in potentially slowing memory loss, including in individuals with the APOE4 genotype, so that they relied on data from the China Cognition and Ageing Study, which began in 2009 and led to 2019.
At the beginning, study participants, who were considered “cognitively normal,” accomplished tests of cognitive ability and memory, in addition to providing details about their lifestyle, health, economic and social aspects. They were then examined again in 2012, 2014, 2016, and at the tip of the study. The long follow-up period allowed for the assessment of individual lifestyle aspects on memory function over time.
“Lifestyle” consisted of six aspects:
- Physical activity (weekly frequency and total duration)
- Smoking status (current smoker, former smoker or never smoker)
- Alcohol consumption (never drunk, occasionally drunk, light to excessive alcohol consumption and heavy alcohol consumption)
- Diet (every day intake of 12 foods: fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, dairy products, salt, oil, eggs, cereals, legumes, nuts, tea)
- Cognitive activity (writing, reading, playing cards, mahjong, other games)
- Social contacts (attending meetings, attending parties, visiting friends/relatives, traveling, online chatting)
People's lifestyles were assessed based on the variety of health aspects they followed. A “favorable” lifestyle included 4 to 6 health aspects, an “average” lifestyle included two to 3 health aspects, and an “unfavorable” lifestyle included one to 2 health aspects.
Impact on public health
During the 10-year period, 7,164 study participants died and three,567 dropped out.
Compared with the poor lifestyle group, memory loss within the favorable lifestyle group was 0.28 points slower over the course of the ten-year study, and memory loss in the typical group was 0.16 points lower.
People with a good or average lifestyle were almost 90% and 30% lower, respectively, than individuals with an unfavorable lifestyle.
The authors identified some limitations to their findings. First, the study was observational, meaning we don't know whether the healthy lifestyle actually led to slower memory loss or whether the link might be on account of something else.
Nevertheless, the outcomes could “provide important public health information to protect older adults from memory loss,” especially because the study “provides evidence that these effects also occur in individuals with the APOE4 allele,” the study authors said.
“Important and encouraging” results
Severine Sabia, PhD, senior researcher on the Université Paris Cité, INSERM Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicalé in France, called the outcomes “important and encouraging.”
Nevertheless, Sabia, who can be co-author of an accompanying editorial, notes that “there are still important research questions that need to be investigated to identify key behaviors whose combination [of behaviors]when the risk can be estimated and when intervention is necessary.”