be physically and mentally active to delay illness

Frontotemporal dementia, or DFT, is the form of dementia most common in people under the age of 65. It accounts for 5 to 15% of all dementia cases. It can disturb personality, decision-making, language or movement skills, and generally appears between 45 and 65 years of age. It often results in rapid cognitive and physical decline and death in less than 10 years. Unfortunately, there is currently no medication to treat it. Today, however, researchers have discovered that a physically and mentally active lifestyle confers resilience to this neurodegenerative disease, even in people who are genetically predisposed. The results of this study appeared in the magazine Alzheimer’s and Dementia.

“There is incredible variability in DFT, even in people who have the same genetic mutations that cause their disease. Some people are simply more resilient than others for reasons that we don’t yet understand, ”said Kaitlin Casaletto, a member of the Weill Institute for Neuroscience at the University of California (USA) and the author of this study. “Our hypothesis was that the activities that people do every day of their lives could contribute to the very different trajectories that we see in the clinic, including when the disease develops and how it progresses,” she said.

She and her colleagues therefore studied how the lifestyles of 150 people with dominant genetic mutations affected the progression of the disease. All participants underwent initial MRIs to measure the extent of brain degeneration caused by the disease, memory and thought tests and presented their current level of daily cognitive and physical activity (reading, time spent with friends, jogging, etc.). At the same time, their family members were assessed regularly. These operations were then repeated during annual monitoring visits. After two or three visits, the researchers began to notice significant differences in the speed and severity of DFT between the most and the least active participants, mentally and physically.

The plight of the sick “maybe not set in stone”

In detail, they found that functional decline was 55% slower among the 25% of the most active participants compared to the 5% least active. One year after the start of the study, even if they showed signs of atrophy in brain imaging, the most mentally and physically active participants had cognitive results twice as much as the least active. Thus, a person’s lifestyle can slow the symptoms of the disease and provide some form of cognitive resilience to the consequences of brain degeneration.

“It is a devastating disease in the absence of good medical treatment, but our results suggest that even people with a genetic predisposition for DFT can still take steps to increase their chances of living a long and productive life. . Their fate may not be set in stone, ”enthuses Kaitlin Casaletto.

Now, researchers expect to see even greater differences in cognitive decline between more or less active groups as the study continues. “We have seen such significant effects in the first or first two years only in people with very mild illness – if these results are confirmed, we could see that an active lifestyle places individuals on a different trajectory for the years to come ”, explains Kaitlin Casaletto.

Adopt more productive lifestyles

Scientists will soon include more detailed and objective assessments of participants’ physical and mental activity, for example by equipping them with portable FitBit activity sensors, so that they can understand the amount of activity needed to promote cognitive resilience.

So far, the study has only shown a correlation, the researchers concede. “It is possible that some participants have a less active lifestyle because they have a more severe or aggressive form of DFT, which already has an influence on their ability to be active. Clinical trials that manipulate the levels of cognitive and physical activity in people with DFT mutations are needed to prove that lifestyle changes can change the course of the disease, ”admits Casaletto. But if these results are not definitive, she hopes that they will encourage healthcare teams and people with a family history of DFT to adopt more productive lifestyles.

“We can see that lifestyle differences have an influence on the resilience of people with DFT despite very penetrating genetics, so we can now start to ask more basic questions, like how these behaviors actually affect brain biology to build that resilience. Is this biological effect something that we could reproduce pharmacologically to help slow the progression of this terrible disease for everyone, “she enthuses.

Alzheimer’s and physical activity

The results of this study agree with the many conclusions that exercise is one of the best ways to prevent or slow down Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia around the world. Recently, researchers have finally understood why regular activity could prevent cognitive decline. Their work shows that irisine, a hormone released in the body when playing sports, also promotes neuronal growth in the hippocampus of the brain, a region that plays an essential role in learning and memory.

“All of these results suggest that irisine could be exploited to find a new therapy to prevent or treat dementia in humans. In the meantime, I would certainly encourage everyone to exercise, to promote brain function and general health, ”concludes Ottavio Arancio, lead author of the study and researcher at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Columbia University.

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