'mentally Active' Sitting May Reduce Dementia Risk, Study Finds

Sitting for hours connected a regular ground tin beryllium bad for your assemblage and brain. A caller study suggests that keeping your encephalon engaged helps counteract immoderate of nan harms of sedentary behavior.

Engagement intends activities specified arsenic knitting aliases solving a puzzle, alternatively of mindlessly scrolling aliases passively watching a screen.

Scientists astatine nan Karolinska Institute successful Stockholm surveyed 20,811 Swedish adults, mostly women betwixt nan ages of 35 and 64, astir their play beingness activity and really overmuch regular clip they spent successful “mentally active” and “mentally passive” sedentary behavior. They first questioned nan participants successful 1997 and followed up 19 years later to measure dementia consequence and status.

Sedentary behaviour — agelong periods of sitting, lying down aliases reclining — is linked to “major consequence factors for dementia,” for illustration precocious humor pressure, bosom disease, glucosuria and obesity, said Mats Hallgren, a main interrogator astatine nan Karolinska Institute and an writer of nan study.

However, encephalon activity is simply a important constituent successful protecting against that damage.

The encephalon “works for illustration a muscle,” he said. Not actively utilizing it for extended periods of clip tin yet negatively impact nan parts linked to representation and learning.

In nan questionnaire, being mentally progressive while sedentary included agency work, sitting successful a meeting, arsenic good arsenic knitting and sewing. Activities for illustration utilizing a machine to lick a puzzle were considered intellectually stimulating.

Watching TV aliases listening to euphony while sedentary counted arsenic mentally passive.

In nan study, which was published Thursday successful nan American Journal of Preventive Medicine, participants who engaged successful much mentally passive sitting had a “significantly higher consequence of processing immoderate type of dementia successful nan future,” Hallgren said.

Concerns astir 'brain rot' behavior

Using a statistical model, researchers past predicted really changes successful intelligence activity would impact dementia risk.

They calculated that adding an hr of mentally progressive behaviour while sedentary decreased dementia consequence by 4%; replacing an hr of mentally passive behaviour pinch mentally progressive behaviour decreased nan consequence by 7%; and combining beingness activity, for illustration walking, pinch progressive intelligence behaviour decreased nan consequence by 11%.

The study has limitations. Because nan first questionnaire was almost 3 decades ago, smartphones, societal media and endless scrolling didn’t exist. An earlier reappraisal suggested that older adults reaped cognitive benefits from telephone usage, but little is known astir children and young adults. And because it’s based connected self-reporting, nan investigation can’t reason whether mentally passive activities summation nan consequence of dementia, aliases whether group pinch a greater dementia consequence whitethorn prosecute successful passive activities more.

Dr. Hussein Yassine, a professor of neurology astatine nan University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, speculates that telephone and societal media usage whitethorn airs a akin consequence by affecting our expertise to concentrate.

“It’s going to beryllium affecting your expertise to process accusation and perchance build synapses successful definite areas successful nan encephalon that thief pinch concentrating,” Yassine said. “So nan adjacent clip you person a superior task aliases you request to concentrate, you’re little tin because your encephalon networks person been hijacked by this passive reception.”

Adam Brickman, a professor of neuropsychology astatine Columbia University, said that nan emergence of short-form contented for illustration TikTok has exponentially accrued mentally passive behavior.

“If you deliberation astir really kids, moreover adults, are spending their clip passively looking astatine contented that I deliberation nary of america would categorize arsenic stimulating aliases progressive behavior, it’s surely a batch higher coming than it was successful 1997,” said Brickman, who was not associated pinch nan caller study.

Recent investigation has raised worries astir cognitive deterioration, popularly called “brain rot,” including shorter attraction spans that whitethorn travel heavy depletion of short-form video.

“This benignant of nonstop-without-thinking scrolling from 1 YouTube video to nan next, those sorts of behaviors erstwhile you’re sitting for a very agelong time, if they’re repeated complete time, are apt to beryllium associated pinch slump and worry and stress-related conditions, compared to much progressive engagements and doing work-type scrolling,” he said.

Even if exertion has changed, “the pathways that impact dementia fundamentally are nan aforesaid successful group coming that they were 30 years ago,” Hallgren said.

His proposal for lowering dementia consequence is simple: “Sit little and move more, much often.”