Weekend Reading: People Who Do This One Thing Every Day Have Half the Dementia Risk That the Rest of Us Do
This article appears as part of Casey Weade's Weekend Reading for Retirees series. Every Friday, Casey highlights four hand-picked articles on trending retirement topics and delivers them straight to your email inbox. Get on the list here.
The number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia is continuing to climb. A recent study showed individuals in their 70s have a nearly one in three chance of getting some form of this disease, but there’s good news on the forefront when it comes to avoiding it as well.
READ THE ARTICLEGet your steps: According to data from the Journal of the American Medical Association Neurology, walking an average of 9,800 steps per day can cut your risk of developing dementia almost in half. Broken down further, the study found that walking 3,800 steps per day equated to a 25 percent lower risk, and walking 6,000 steps per day at a “reasonably quickly” pace resulted in a 62 percent lower risk. Ultimately, however, 9,800 steps a day is the optimal number, which equals roughly 30 minutes of “purposeful walking”.
Add active time to your calendar: It’s so simple, yet so many don’t take the time to just move until it’s too late. There’s no time like the present, right?