Dementia risk shoots up for people who sit down for 10 hours a day, study says
People over the age of 60 who spend a lot of time sitting down are at a higher risk of getting dementia, a new study has found.
The research showed that people over 60 who spend more time watching telly or driving than the average person are at an increased risk of developing the degenerative condition.
In the study, which was carried out by American researchers using data from 100,000 Brits, the risk of dementia significantly increased for adults who spent over 10 hours a day seated, just over the average American and Brit who spend 9 and a half hours sat down a day.
In the UK, one in 14 people over the age of 65 have dementia, and this rises to 1 in 6 for people over 80.
Age is the biggest risk factor for dementia and other known causes include high blood pressure, poor diet and high alcohol consumption, but these new findings have shocked professionals.
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“We were surprised to find that the risk of dementia begins to rapidly increase after 10 hours spent sedentary each day, regardless of how the sedentary time was accumulated,” said Professor Gene Alexander, of the University of Arizona.
Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative disease that causes the loss of brain tissue (Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)The results revealed that, whether spent in prolonged periods spanning several hours or spread out intermittently throughout the day, total seated time had a similar association with dementia. Also, importantly people who spent up to 10 hours sitting down were not at increased risk of developing dementia.
“This should provide some reassurance to those of us with office jobs that involve prolonged periods of sitting, as long we limit our total daily time spent sedentary,” said Professor David Raichlen, the author of the study.
Prof Raichlen, of USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, wanted to find out whether the common advice to break up long periods of sitting by getting up every half an hour could help decrease chances of getting dementia.
"We found that once you take into account the total time spent sedentary, the length of individual sedentary periods didn’t really matter,” concluded Raichlen.
The study, published in JAMA, builds on previous research which highlighted how certain types of sedentary behaviour, such as sitting down and watching TV, increase dementia risk more than others.
The team said further research is needed to establish whether physical activity can mitigate the risk of developing dementia.
The research, which forms part of a larger project aiming to understand how sedentary behaviour affects brain health, was based on data from over 100,000 adults who agreed to wear wrist-worn devices for measuring movement for 24 hours per day for one week as well as a follow-up study six later to find out later dementia diagnoses in the group.
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