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   Exercising Mind and Body May Not Protect Against Alzheimer's   
   by Elizabeth Goldbaum, Staff Writer   
   Date: 12 June 2015 Time: 02:30 PM ET   
        
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   Some studies have linked doing brainy puzzles and physical exercise with a   
   decreased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, or with staving off the   
   cognitive decline associated with the disease. But now, new research suggests   
   otherwise.   
   The latest study on the topic found that staying physically and mentally fit   
   may help healthy people ward off the normal mental decline that comes with   
   aging, but it doesn't affect the underlying causes of Alzheimer's disease.   
   In people with Alzheimer's, the brain contains abnormal, fuzzy, cloudlike   
   clusters of fragments of a protein called beta-amyloid that surround nerve   
   cells and block their signals. This leads the person's brain function -- and,   
   in particular, memory -- to    
   deteriorate.   
      
   In the new study, researchers looked at beta-amyloid and other markers of   
   Alzheimer's, to see if the levels of these markers in people's brains   
   responded to physical and mental exercises.   
   The results indicate that exercising "may possibly be separate from any   
   protection against the markers of Alzheimer's disease in the brain," study   
   author Dr. Keith A. Johnson, co-director of the Massachusetts Alzheimer's   
   Disease Research Center at    
   Harvard Medical School, said in a statement.   
   Johnson and his colleagues studied 186 healthy people whose average age was   
   74. The participants wore pedometers for seven days to measure how active they   
   were, and also reported their lifelong levels of physical activities such   
   walking and gardening,    
   and mental activities such reading and doing crossword puzzles. The   
   participants also took tests that evaluated their memory and how fast they   
   could think.   
   Brain scans of the participants showed that their levels of beta-amyloid, the   
   size of a brain region called the hippocampus and the brain's ability to   
   metabolize glucose were not linked with their lifelong levels of physical or   
   mental activity. (   
   Disruptions in glucose metabolism and a smaller hippocampus are both linked   
   with Alzheimer's.)   
   Although the researchers did find a slower cognitive decline among   
   participants who read frequently and did crossword puzzles, among other   
   mentally stimulating activities, there was no link between mental stimulation   
   and the actual brain's markers of    
   Alzheimer's.   
   Although the study is limited by patients' memories of their past activities,   
   the findings indicate that the underlying causes of Alzheimer's cannot be   
   altered by human activity, Johnson said. Still, further studies are needed to   
   follow people's    
   activities over longer periods of time.   
   However, Johnson said "sustaining a lifetime of intellectual engagement may   
   help preserve cognitive function into old age." He noted that people should   
   not feel discouraged to exercise, as many studies indicate that mental and   
   physical exercise have    
   ample brain benefits.   
   Elizabeth Goldbaum is on Twitter. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook &   
   Google+. Original article on Live Science   
      
   http://m.livescience.com/51188-mental-physical-exercise-still-alzheimers.html   
      
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