Exercise Guidelines in Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease

A series of seven guidelines for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has recently been published.

These guidelines resulted from a conference of experts in nutrition and the brain.

The guidelines included a recommendation for 40 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week.

Support for this exercise recommendation by experts was linked to 2 areas of research:

• Observational studies show lower rates of AD in regular exercise groups compared to sedentary groups
• A single clinical trial found reduced brain atrophy and improved memory following an intervention where elderly adults were randomized to a 40 minute three times a week protocol

I recently summarized another manuscript looking at the association of exercise and brain imaging in those with the APOE genotype linked to Alzheimer's disease. This study was published following the expert conference manuscript.

There certainly need to be more randomized clinical trials of exercise therapy in groups at high risk for cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease.

Here is the list of all 7 prevention recommendations from the manuscript. Readers can access the free full-text manuscript by clicking on the PMID link below.

Prevention Recommendations for Alzheimer's Disease

1. Minimize dietary saturated and trans fats
2. Increase intake of vegetables, fruits, legumes and grains
3. Daily vitamin E intake from foods of 15 mg
4. Daily vitamin B12 in diet or supplement with blood B12 level monitoring
5. Daily multivitamins not recommended but if used avoid those with iron and copper
6. Aluminum link to AD is controversial but avoid antacids and baking soda that contains aluminum
7. Aerobic exercise of 40 minutes at least 3 times per week

I have previously summarized 10 prevention strategies in AD that include non-nutrition based features that can be found here.

Photo of butterfly is from the author's files.

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Barnard ND, Bush AI, Ceccarelli A, Cooper J, de Jager CA, Erickson KI, Fraser G, Kesler S, Levin SM, Lucey B, Morris MC, & Squitti R (2014). Dietary and lifestyle guidelines for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. Neurobiology of aging, 35 Suppl 2 PMID: 24913896