Sedentary lifestyle is harmful to the brain
Sedentary lifestyle is not only associated with poor metabolism or higher risk of heart disease. Researchers noted that it is also associated with changes in brain regions that are key to memory formation.
Sedentary lifestyle badly affects metabolism, increases risk of diseaseób cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and can lead to premature death. All this had been known for some time. Now researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have looked at how this lifestyle affects our mózg.
The researchers recruited 35 osób – 25 women and 10 men between the ages of 45 and 75. Previously, they determined their level of physical activity and the average number of hours per day spent sitting at a desk or in a chair. In each of these waspsób a high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging scan was performed, który provided a detailedóhe medial temporal lobe – a region of the mózgu involved in creating new memories.
During the analysis, the researchers found that a sedentary lifestyle affects changes in the medial temporal lobe. According to them, physical activity, even at high levels, is insufficient to zróoffset the harmful effects of a sedentary lifestyle over a long period of time.
„This study does not prove that the result of a sedentary lifestyle is much thinner structures in mózgu. However, he points to a link between such a lifestyle and thinner regions in the medial temporal lobe” – wrote the authors of the study, whichóre appeared in the pages of „PLOS ONE”.
The next step in the study will be to determine whether the atrophy of the m structuresózg in the temporal lobe is influenced by the gender, race or weight of the person studied. The thinner m structures spotted on the MRI scansóof the brain may be a precursor to cognitive decline and dementia in individualsób middle-aged and elderly.
Lifestyle changes and increased physical activity may be potential targets for physicians’ interventions to improve health mózgu in osób at risk of Alzheimer’s disease.