Healthy lifestyle, behavior slows memory decline

Adherence to a healthy lifestyle paired with positive individual behavior reduces the rate of memory decline, according to a study published in BMJ.

In addition, researchers reported that individuals with the APOE e4 allele experienced this cognitive benefit.

“These results provide an optimistic outlook, as they suggest that although genetic risk is not modifiable, a combination of more healthy lifestyle factors are associated with a slower rate of memory decline, regardless of the genetic risk,” Jianping Jia, MD, PhD, of the Innovation Center for Neurological Disorders and department of neurology at Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University and the National Center for Neurological Disorders in Beijing, China, and colleagues wrote.

In a population-based prospective cohort study, Jia and colleagues evaluated the impact of individual lifestyle factors on memory loss and function between May 2009 and December 2019 in 29,072 participants aged 60 years or older with normal cognitive function (mean age, 72.23 years; 48.54% women) from the nationwide China Cognition and Ageing Study cohort.

Researchers assessed six lifestyle factors in a questionnaire at baseline and follow-up, with each factor evaluated individually for its association with memory function. Lifestyle factors included physical exercise, diet, drinking, smoking, cognitive activity and social contact. Following lifestyle factor evaluations, participants were grouped into three categories based on their habits: favorable, average or unfavorable.

The study also examined the effect that an APOE genotype had on this lifestyle/memory association by grouping participants into APOE e4 carriers and non-carriers.

Jia and colleagues found that a healthy diet was the greatest contributor to reducing memory decline (regression coefficient, .016; 95% CI, .014-.017). Active cognitive activity (regression coefficient, .01; 95% CI, .008-.012), regular physical exercise (regression coefficient, .007; 95% CI, .005-.009), active social contact (regression coefficient, .004; 95% CI, .002-.006), never/former smoking (regression coefficient, .004; 95% CI, .000-.008) and never drinking (regression coefficient, .002; 95% CI, .000-.004) followed.

Compared with individuals in the unfavorable lifestyle group, those in the favorable and average groups had a slower rate of memory decline (P < .001).

In addition, APOE e4 carriers had faster memory decline than non-carriers (P = .007). However, the researchers noted that both APOE e4 carriers and non-carriers experienced better memory function when they were in the favorable lifestyle group, compared with average and unfavorable (P < .001). Also, APOE e4 carriers and non-carriers in the favorable and average groups had slower rates of memory decline than those in the unfavorable group, they wrote.

“Although each lifestyle factor contributed differentially to slowing memory decline, our results showed that participants who maintained more healthy lifestyle factors had a significantly slower memory decline than those with fewer healthy lifestyle factors,” Jia and colleagues wrote. “This information could be useful in making personal choices that can help to protect against memory decline, and our results provide further evidence that memory loss is potentially modifiable.”