|
N
|
ew
research finds that people who tend to walk more slowly at the age of 45
present with signs of premature accelerated aging, both physically and
cognitively.
New research suggests that a slower walking speed in midlife
may be a marker of accelerated aging.
Walking speed may be a powerful predictor of lifespan and
health.
A recent study,
reported on by Medical News
Today, found that the faster a person walks, the longer they may
live, with older adults benefitting the most from a brisk pace.
Medical professionals have long used gait speed as a marker
of health and fitness among older adults, but the new research asks a slightly
different question: Does a slow gait speed in midlife indicate and predict
accelerated aging?
Line J. H. Rasmussen, Ph.D., a researcher in the department
of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, in
Durham, NC, and colleagues set out to answer this question by examining data
from 904 study participants.
Rasmussen and the team published their findings in the
journal JAMA Network Open.
Cognition, overall health, and
gait speed
The researchers assessed participants' data from the Dunedin
Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a longitudinal
cohort study of people living in Dunedin, New Zealand.
The participants have undergone periodic testing for most of their lives. The researchers have been tracking the participants' general health and behavior, with assessments beginning when participants were 3 years old.
The participants have undergone periodic testing for most of their lives. The researchers have been tracking the participants' general health and behavior, with assessments beginning when participants were 3 years old.
At the time, a pediatric neurologist used standard
intelligence tests to assess the children's neurocognitive performance,
including their receptive language, motor skills, and emotional and behavioral
regulation.
The researchers had access to data such as IQ scores —
including processing speed, working memory, perceptual reasoning, and verbal
comprehension.
The researchers evaluated the now-adult participants'
walking speeds under three conditions: usual gait speed, dual task gait speed —
wherein the participants had to walk as usual while reciting the alphabet — and
maximum gait speed.
The team also evaluated the physical function of the adults
by asking them to self-report in a survey and complete a series of physical
tasks that tested their grip strength, balance, and hand-eye coordination,
among other factors.
To assess accelerated aging, the team looked at a variety of
biomarkers, including body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, blood pressure,
cardiorespiratory fitness, total cholesterol level, triglycerides
level, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level, creatinine clearance, blood
urea level, C-reactive protein level, white blood cell count, and gum and teeth
health.
The researchers also evaluated the adults' brain health
using MRI scans.
Additionally, the scientists brought in an independent panel
of 8 people who assessed the ages of the participants using standardized photos
of their faces at age 45.
Worse health, faster aging in slow
walkers
The MRI scans revealed that slow walkers, at the age of 45,
had a smaller brain volume, more cortical thinning, smaller cortical areas, and
more white matter lesions. In other words, their brains appeared to be older
than their biological age.
The independent panel also tended to assign an older age to
these participants, based on their facial appearance in the photographs.
Overall, the cardiorespiratory health, immune health, and
gum and teeth health of the slow-walking participants also fared worse than
those who walked faster. The correlation was particularly evident in the
participants' maximum walking speeds.
"The thing that's really
striking is that this is in 45-year-old people, not the geriatric patients who
are usually assessed with such measures," says Rasmussen, the study's lead
author.
Interestingly, the scores for IQ, receptive language, motor
skills, and emotional and behavioral regulation of the children at age 3 also
predicted walking speed. Those who would become slow walkers as adults fared
more poorly on these measures.
"Doctors know that slow walkers in their 70s and 80s
tend to die sooner than fast walkers their same age," adds senior author
Terrie E. Moffitt, the Nannerl O. Keohane University professor of psychology at
Duke University and senior author of the study.
"But
this study covered the period from the preschool years to midlife and found
that a slow walk is a problem sign decades before old age."
No comments:
Post a Comment