Walking over 9,800 steps daily could cut the risk of developing dementia in half — but that’s not the biggest takeaway from the study.
From quitting smoking to doing puzzles, there are lots of ways to reduce your risk of dementia, and a new study is illuminating another simple way to decrease your risk: walking. While exercise and maintaining a healthy diet have long been touted as ways to lower one’s risk factors, the study, out of Denmark, breaks down just how much walking (and at what speed) can have an impact down the line.
The study, which was published Tuesday in JAMA Neurology, analyzed data from more than 78,000 people aged 40-79 who wore wrist devices that measured acceleration (or accelerometers). The researchers tallied up each participant’s total steps walked per day and then, seven years later, analyzed if participants were diagnosed with dementia (of any type). The researchers controlled for factors such as age, ethnicity, education, socioeconomic status, and gender, and factored out poor diet, alcohol use, smoking, history of cardiovascular disease, medication, and sleep issues. The findings may make you want to take a hike — in a good way: The study found that those who took 9,826 steps or more a day were 50% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia. If that number of steps sounds daunting, don’t stress — the study found that people who had taken just 3,800 steps per day were 25% less likely to develop the disease.
But the researchers caution against getting too focused on the numbers — the steps you walk are actually less important than the pace at which you strut, the study found. The ideal speed, “is a brisk walking activity, like a power walk,” coauthor Borja del Pozo Cruz told CNN. In fact, the study found that people who walked at a pace of 112 steps per minute for 30 minutes per day reduced their risk of developing dementia by 62% — the largest risk reduction of any group in the study. “Our take is that intensity of stepping matters! Over and above volume,” del Pozo Cruz added. The findings are particularly noteworthy given that a study of over 16,000 people published this June showed that a decrease in walking speed could signal cognitive decline.
The findings, while significant, are not the be-all and end-all — it’s important to note that the study was observational and thus can’t establish a causal relationship between walking and dementia risk. Additionally, since the study doesn’t account for participants who may have been diagnosed with dementia after the study was conducted, and didn’t include clinical cognitive assessments, the prevalence of dementia in the participant pool may be higher than what was reported. Still, “the mounting evidence in support of the benefits of physical activity for maintaining optimal brain health can no longer be disregarded,” wrote Alzheimer’s researchers Ozioma Okonkwo and Elizabeth Planalp in an editorial about the study, also published in JAMA Neurology.
The findings come at a crucial time, given that in July, a whistleblower alerted the scientific community that a 2006 study — one that informed a large proportion of Alzheimer’s drugs and research — may have fabricated its results. The study in question seemed to confirm a hypothesis that buildup of a certain type of amyloid protein caused the memory loss and cognitive impairment associated with Alzheimer’s, but it was discovered the study used doctored images to support its findings.
And with new findings showing a link between having covid-19 and developing certain brain disorders — including dementia — later in life, maintaining a healthy brain has been top of mind (pun not intended, we swear!) for many of us lately. In addition to the study that focused on walking, a July study found that, in addition to exercise, a number of everyday activities could significantly reduce dementia risk: doing household chores regularly was found to decrease the risk by as much as 21%, and seeing friends or family daily lowered risk by 15%.
And if you’re looking for an unconventional way to boost memory, a new study conducted by researchers at Boston University found that electric-current stimulation improved short-term memory recall by 50-65% in adults over 65. But since that’s not exactly applicable for the average person — and since more research needs to be done on if the stimulation would improve recollection of everyday memories — we’ll stick to our brisk walks.
