Can a daily walk help prevent dementia, stroke, or even anxiety?
A new study suggests that moderate to vigorous physical activity may significantly lower the risk of these conditions — while too much sitting increases it.
Exercise and Brain Health
People who engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity may have a lower risk of developing dementia, stroke, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, according to a preliminary study released today (February 27, 2025). The findings will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 77th Annual Meeting, held April 5–9, 2025, in San Diego and online.
The study also found that the more time people spent sitting, the greater their risk of developing one of these conditions.
A Path to Reducing Disease Risks
“This research highlights the role of physical activity and sedentary behavior as modifiable factors that may enhance brain health and reduce the incidence of these diseases,” said study author Jia-Yi Wu, MD, of Fudan University in Shanghai, China. “It is promising to think that encouraging people to make these lifestyle changes could potentially lessen the burden of these diseases in the future.”
From a large United Kingdom database, researchers looked at data from 73,411 people with an average age of 56 who wore accelerometer devices continuously for seven days to measure their physical activity, how much energy they used on their activities, and how much time they spent sitting each day.
Measuring Energy Expenditure
Metabolic equivalents (METs) were used to quantify energy expenditure. Moderate to vigorous physical activity was defined as activities with an energy expenditure of at least three METs, where walking or cleaning was three METs, and more intense exercise like cycling could be around six METs, depending on speed. People who had moderate to vigorous physical activity energy expenditure were 14% to 40% less likely to develop the five diseases than those who had lower energy expenditure, depending on how active they were.
The people who did not develop any of the diseases had an average daily moderate to vigorous physical activity energy expenditure of 1.22 kilojoules per kilogram, compared to 0.85 for the people who developed dementia, 0.95 for those who developed sleep disorders, 1.02 for stroke, 1.08 for depression and 1.10 for anxiety.
The Danger of a Sedentary Lifestyle
The more time people spent sitting, the higher their risk of developing one of the diseases, with the increase ranging from 5% to 54% higher than those who spent the least amount of time sitting.
“Some previous studies have relied on people reporting on their own levels of activity,” Wu said. “With our large number of participants and the use of devices that provide objective measurements of activity levels, these results will have implications for assessing risk factors and developing interventions to prevent the development of these diseases.”
A limitation of the study was that 96% of the participants were white people, so the results may not apply to other groups.
Meeting: American Academy of Neurology’s 77th Annual Meeting
This study was supported by grants from the Scientific and Technological Innovation 2030 – “Brain Science and Brain-inspired Artificial Intelligence” Major Project.
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