Study finds that sitting for long periods of time can shrink the brain, but exercise is largely ineffective
A sedentary lifestyle is generally considered bad, and it's good to stand up and do light exercise regularly. A new study of people over 50 years old has revealed that sitting for long periods of time can lead to brain atrophy and cognitive decline, and that exercise may have little effect.
Increased sedentary behavior is associated with neurodegeneration and worse cognition in older adults over a 7‐year period despite high levels of physical activity - Gogniat - 2025 - Alzheimer's & Dementia - Wiley Online Library
Study reveals sedentary behavior is an independent risk factor for Alzheimer's disease - VUMC News
https://news.vumc.org/2025/05/13/study-reveals-sedentary-behavior-is-an-independent-risk-factor-for-alzheimers-disease/
Sitting for long periods of time is considered a risk to health, with some studies showing that if you sit for more than 12 hours a day, your risk of cardiovascular disease increases by 13% for each additional hour, and some even suggest that sleeping is better than sitting. Some studies have shown that the best way to reduce these risks is to walk lightly for 5 minutes every 30 minutes.
How to easily reduce the health risks of sitting for long periods of time? - GIGAZINE
However, it has been found that the above-mentioned exercise may not affect the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in elderly people.
Researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh in the United States had 404 subjects over the age of 50 wear a special wristwatch-type device and measure their physical activity for seven days. They then compared the data with those from a study the subjects had participated in over the past seven years to investigate how sitting time affected the subjects' cognitive performance and brain images.
The results showed that the longer people spend sitting, the more their cognitive function declines and their brain size shrinks.
The left side of the image below shows the relationship between sitting time and gray matter volume in the brain, and the right side shows the relationship between sitting time and episodic memory scores. In both cases, the higher the value on the horizontal axis, the better the performance, and the longer the sitting time shown on the vertical axis, the worse the performance.
The subjects' average sitting time was 807 minutes (about 13 hours) per day.
The study also found that the amount of exercise may not have much of an effect on cognitive decline in older adults. The researchers found no evidence that exercise prevents cognitive decline, even though most participants (87%) met the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, with an average of 61 ± 38 minutes per day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (
From this, the researchers concluded, 'We found that subjects who spent more time sitting were more likely to experience cognitive decline and neurodegeneration, regardless of the amount of exercise they did. This tendency was stronger in subjects with the APOE-e4 allele, a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. This suggests that reducing sitting time is particularly important for older adults who are at high genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease. Exercising once a day is not enough to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease. Even if you exercise every day, it is important to minimize sitting time.'
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in Science, Posted by log1p_kr