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18 Headlines The study involved 1,557 people with an average age of 75. None had dementia, but 296 people had mild cognitive impairment and 28% had the APOE gene that is linked to a greater risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Participants were given physical exams, thinking and memory tests, and were asked about their daily tasks and other physical activities. Researchers then calculated how much time and energy each person spent on those tasks and activities. Researchers divided people into three groups: those who were inactive; those who were somewhat active meaning each week they either had roughly two-and-a- half hours of low-intensity physical activity, one-and-a- half hours of moderate physical activity or one hour of high-intensity physical activity; and those who were most active meaning each week they either had seven hours of low-intensity physical activity, four hours of moderate physical activity or two hours of high-intensity physical activity. Researchers then reviewed MRI brain scans of all participants and found that when compared to the people in the inactive group, those who were most active had larger total brain volume. After adjusting for age, sex, education, race/ethnicity and APOE gene status, the average brain size for those who were inactive was 871 cubic centimetres compared to 883 cubic centimetres for those who were most active, a difference of 12 cubic centimetres, or 1.4%, or the equivalent of nearly four years of brain ageing. The results remained similar even after excluding people who had mild cognitive impairment. “Our results add to the evidence that more physical activity is linked to larger brain volume in older people,” said Gu. “It also builds on evidence that moving your body more often throughout one’s life may protect against loss of brain volume.” A limitation of the study was that information on physical activity relied on a person’s ability to remember how often and for how much time they were active. Additionally, Gu noted that due to the particular study design, this study does not prove that exercise prevents brain shrinkage; it shows an association. The study was supported by the National Institute on Ageing and the National Institutes of Health. Fruits, vegetables and tea may be helpful Antioxidant flavonol linked to lower risk of Alzheimer’s dementia People who eat or drink more foods with the antioxidant flavonol, which is found in nearly all fruits and vegetables as well as tea, may be less likely to develop Alzheimer’s dementia years later, according to a study published in the 29 January, 2020, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “More research is needed to confirm these results, but these are promising findings,” said study author Thomas M. Holland, MD, of Rush University in Chicago. “Eating more fruits and vegetables and drinking more tea could be a fairly inexpensive and easy way for people to help stave off Alzheimer’s dementia. With the elderly population increasing worldwide, any decrease in the number of people with this devastating disease, or even delaying it for a few years, could have an enormous benefit on public health.” Flavonols are a type of flavonoid, a group of phytochemicals found in plant pigments known for their beneficial effects on health. The study involved 921 people with an average age of 81 who did not have Alzheimer’s dementia. The people filled out a questionnaire each year on how often they ate certain foods. They were also asked about other factors, such as their level of education, how much time they spent doing physical activities and how much time they spent doing mentally engaging activities such as reading and playing games. The people were tested yearly to see if they had developed Alzheimer’s dementia. They were followed for an average of six years. The researchers used various tests to determine that 220 people developed Alzheimer’s dementia during the study. The people were divided into five groups based on how much flavonol they had in their diet. The average amount of flavonol intake in US adults is about 16 to 20 milligrams per day. In the study, the lowest group had intake of about 5.3 mg per day and the highest group consumed an average of 15.3 mg per day. The study found that people in the highest group were 48 percent less likely to later develop Alzheimer’s dementia than the people in the lowest group after adjusting for genetic predisposition and demographic and lifestyle factors. Of the 186 people in the highest group, 28 people, or 15 percent, developed Alzheimer’s dementia, compared to 54 people, or 30 percent, of the 182 people in the lowest group. The results were the same after researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect the risk of Alzheimer’s dementia, such as, diabetes, previous heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure. The study also broke the flavonols down into four types: isorhamnetin, kaempferol, myricetin and quercetin. The top food contributors for each category were: pears, olive oil, wine and tomato sauce for isorhamnetin; kale, beans, tea, spinach and broccoli for kaempferol; tea, wine, kale, oranges and tomatoes for myricetin; and tomatoes, kale, apples and tea for quercetin.