Running more than 15 miles a week may reduce the risk of dying from Alzheimer's disease, new research suggests.
Walking can help, too, if the amount of energy expended is equivalent to running more than 15 miles weekly, the study found.
"Exercise seems to prevent the shrinkage [in the brain] that occurs with age," said study researcher Paul Williams, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. And preserving brain volume may be why vigorous exercise helps reduce the risk of Alzheimer's death, according to Williams.
Williams' study also found that taking cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins was linked to reduced risk of death from Alzheimer's disease, as did eating three or more pieces of fruit daily.
However, this study was only able to find associations between all of these factors and the risk of death from Alzheimer's disease. The study wasn't designed to prove whether or not running, walking, eating fruit or taking statins caused a decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease.
[For more of this story, written by Kathleen Doheny, go to http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-12-links-alzheimer-death.html]
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