A new study by Dr. Wendy Yau, a former McKnight Clinical Translational Research Scholar, and colleagues found that increasing the number of steps taken daily may slow cognitive decline in older adults with early, biological signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Published November 3 in the journal Nature Medicine, the observational study leveraged an expanded cohort of the Harvard Aging Brain Study to follow 296 cognitively unimpaired older adults for up to 14 years, tracking their daily steps with pedometers and conducting annual cognitive assessments to demonstrate an association between higher physical activity and slower cognitive decline.
According to the study, cognitive decline was delayed by an average of three years for people who walked 3,000-5,000 steps per day and by seven years for individuals who walked 5,000-7,500 steps per day.
The study’s first author, Dr. Wendy Yau is a 2021 recipient of the McKnight Brain Research Foundation Clinical Translational Research Scholarship, which she says supported her work with the Harvard Aging Brain Study and helped pave the way for work on groundbreaking studies like this one.
“Following two years of medical school clinical rotations and four years of intensive residency training, the McKnight award was instrumental in supporting my transition to a career as a clinician-scientist. The grant provided critical protected research time that allowed me to develop a clear research direction focused on how Alzheimer’s disease interacts with modifiable lifestyle factors, including vascular risk and physical activity, to influence cognitive trajectories in late life.”
Dr. Wedny Yau, a neurologist and memory disorders physician scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
“With this study, my colleagues and I were excited to see evidence that physical activity may help slow the buildup of tau — the protein most closely linked to memory loss — and delay cognitive decline in people with early Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Yau.
“With all the caveats attached to observational studies, this is the clearest evidence yet that physical activity engages a biological pathway intrinsic to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and slows cognitive decline in older individuals who are cognitively unimpaired at baseline despite elevated levels of brain amyloid – or ‘Preclinical AD’. This effect appears to be independent of brain amyloid lowering and mediated by slowing of tau accumulation.”
Dr. Madhav Thambisetty, Vice Chair of McKnight Brain Research Foundation and Executive Director of Neuroscience Translational Medicine at Novartis.
Dr. Thambisetty summarized the study’s clinical implications, “If you needed any additional incentive to be physically active, here is a potentially disease-modifying intervention that appears to impact the underlying biology of AD without requiring intravenous infusions and the accompanying risks of brain swelling or bleeding. “Walk to end Alzheimer’s” has taken on a whole new meaning.”
Read the full study in Nature Medicine.