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Upgrade Your Walking Step on Dementia The May 2023 Harvard Health Letter explains how to get more out of walking. They begin with the main health benefits of walking: lowers (bad) LDL cholesterol, controls blood pressure, strengthens muscles, burns calories, and lifts mood. Walking also helps ward off heart disease, strokes, and diabetes. It also helps prevent or treat dementia. * * * And let's not forget balance. My Morning Motion routine includes one leg balancing and heel-to-toe walking. Harvard Health suggests upgrading heel-to-toe walking by turning your head slowly left and right, explaining that looking in different directions and aiming your ears in different directions, tricks the visual and auditory feedback to your brain--adding a new challenge. So simple—and so effective. Probably not something we’d come up with on our own. An enjoyable new challenge. Walking with Weight I’ve always thought that walking with added weight was silly, taking some of the pleasure out of movement. Turns out that there's method to the madness. Harvard Health says that weight bearing exercise is a standard way to strengthen your bones. That the extra force on bones stimulates them to add cells, which speeds up the process of building bone mass. Wearing a weighted vest is a standard way to strengthen our bones. Get one that allows you to adjust the amount of weight you’ll carry. They say you can find vests for about $40 online or at sporting goods stores. Start with 5 pounds. After two weeks increase to 7.5 pounds. Two weeks later move up to 10 pounds. “Don’t wear the vest if it makes it hard to walk or if you experience any pain or soreness after wearing it.” * * * I asked Carol if she wanted to try it on her walks. Sounds like a way to make walking a little more interesting. My thought was that we could trade off on our walks. She said “NO WAY,” that the extra weight would do more harm than good. You may want to try it anyway. Let us know if you find it worthwhile. * * * That brings us to a super serious benefit. Stepping on Dementia A study in the U. K. found that walking is one of the best tools we have to prevent or treat dementia. The researchers monitored over 78,000 adults for seven years and found that a higher number of steps per day was associated with a lower risk of all-cause dementia, and that the association was stronger in people who walk more briskly. Those least likely to develop dementia walked close to the popular goal of 10,000 steps. Even people who walked approximately 3,800 steps a day at any speed cut their risk of dementia by 25%. Another study published in January found that exercise may slow dementia in active older people whose brains already showed signs of plaques, tangles and other hallmarks of Alzheimer’s and other cognitive diseases. That study found that exercise boosts levels of a protein known to strengthen communication between brain cells via synapses, which may be a key factor in keeping dementia at bay. “Dementia is preventable to a great extent,” said study coauthor Borja del Pozo Cruz. “Physical activity as well as other lifestyle behaviors such as lack of alcohol and smoking, maintaining a healthy diet and weight and sleep can put you on the right track to avoid dementia.” (Much of this information was found on CNN.) My Take My thought is that many doctors look on dementia much like obesity, a problem that most patients are not willing to do much if anything to combat. The waiting rooms of doctors are filled with overweight patients. That’s likely to also be true of patients suffering with dementia. Their patients are more willing to take pills than actively fight obesity or dementia. So pills it is. * * * The UK study and the words of coauthor Borja del Pozo Cruz are encouraging to people who suffer from or have relatives who suffered from dementia. My mother’s dementia could’ve of been moderated or even avoided had she been more active physically, mentally, and socially. She was a wonderful loving person. She responded to me until her dying day. But she lacked purpose. * * * As I have written here before, my short term memory problems suggest that I may be in the early stages of dementia. (Heading for 86 has its downside) The UK study and the encouraging words of Borja del Pozo Cruz are fighting words for me. I intend to do everything I can to fight off dementia. No doctor can help me as much as I can help myself.
This photo by Bill Reynolds illustrates the effort I’ve put into training throughout my adult life. Walking and lifting are the cornerstone of all-around fitness. Combined with healthy diet, bodyweight, and sleep it puts you on Borja del Pozo Cruz’s track to avoid dementia. Add mental challenge and purpose and you’re in a place no doctor can match.
June 1, 2023 Comment on this article: FEEDBACK Ripped Enterprises, P.O. Box 51236, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87181-1236 Home | Products Index | Ripped Bks | Lean Adv. Bks | Lean For Life | Recommended Bks | |Consultations | Tapes | To Order | Feedback] Copyright © 2023 Clarence and Carol Bass. All rights reserved.
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