We all know how important it is to live a healthy lifestyle. Now it is becoming clear that we must also live an active lifestyle.
The findings in a new study suggest that seniors who are “housebound” have a significantly elevated risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease. Bryan D. James, the lead investigator in the study and a postdoctoral fellow at Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago, found that seniors who were considered housebound were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
Researchers conducting the study tracked 1,294 seniors from two non-associated studies of older adults. At the beginning of the studies, none of the subjects showed signs of Alzheimer’s or dementia. Over an average of 4.4 years, 180 participants developed Alzheimer’s disease.
The determining factor in many of these 180 cases was that the subjects never left their home environments during a given week. Those housebound study participants were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease in the years of follow-up as those who ventured out of their immediate surroundings
The research, James said, offers “a new way to see who’s going to be more likely to develop dementia in the future.”
Alzheimer’s Disease affects close to 5.2 million people in the United States. That number is expected to skyrocket to as many as 7.7 by 2030 with the coming of age of the Baby Boomers.
The bottom line here is this. Staying active in our older years is incredibly important. Not only do we have to stay active to preserve our bodies, but we also have to stay active to preserve our minds.
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