According to a recent study, individuals aged 60 and more who sit for a long period of time watching TV or engaging in other passive, sedentary behaviours may be at an increased risk of developing dementia. The study also showed that the risk is lower for those who are active while sitting, such as when they read or use computers.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It also revealed that the link between sedentary behaviour and dementia risk persisted even among participants who were physically active.

“It isn’t the time spent sitting, per se, but the type of sedentary activity performed during leisure time that impacts dementia risk,” said study author David Raichlen, professor of biological sciences and anthropology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “We know from past studies that watching TV involves low levels of muscle activity and energy use compared with using a computer or reading,” he said. “And while research has shown that uninterrupted sitting for long periods is linked with reduced blood flow in the brain, the relatively greater intellectual stimulation that occurs during computer use may counteract the negative effects of sitting.” Researchers used self-reported data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database of more than 5,00,000 participants across the United Kingdom, to investigate possible correlations between sedentary leisure activity and dementia in older adults. More than 1,45,000 participants aged 60 and older—all of whom did not have a diagnosis of dementia at the start of the project—used touchscreen questionnaires to self-report information about their levels of sedentary behaviour during the 2006-2010 baseline examination period.

After an average of nearly 12 years of follow-up, the researchers used hospital inpatient records to determine dementia diagnosis. They found 3,507 positive cases. Then, the team adjusted for certain demographics (e.g., age, sex, race/ethnicity, employment type) and lifestyle characteristics (e.g., exercise, smoking and alcohol use, time spent sleeping and engaging in social contact) that could affect brain health.      Source: ANI