In August, researchers at the Universidad Europea, Helios Pareja and Alejandro Lucía, published a study in US medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The meta-analysis study analyzes the risk of suffering Alzheimer’s based on physical activity in previous years.
The study analyzes a sample of 23,345 people aged between 70 and 80, and indicates that people who have been physically active during the previous five years were 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than sedentary individuals. To draw their conclusions, the researchers conducted a sub-analysis of five studies including 10,615 individuals, and determined whether a person was active or not depending on whether they did 150 minutes or more of moderate-intense physical activity per week, equivalent to walking briskly for 20-30 minutes each day.
Helios Pareja and Alejandro Lucía focused their efforts on discovering to what extent the biological mechanisms of exercise that help to prevent or treat numerous pathologies have an effect on developing the disease. After assessing the results, the authors of the study claim that Spanish healthcare professionals should recommend more exercise.