translated from Spanish: Television can deplete the aging brain

Mom always said that an excess of television was bad brains, and as with a lot of other things, she seems to be right. Middle-aged people who regularly turn to television to entertain themselves appear to have a higher risk of deterioration in reasoning and memory at a later point in life, suggest three new studies.
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Researchers found that even moderate levels of television use were associated with worse performance in cognitive tests as people got older. Those who watched television regularly also experienced increased brain atrophy. Read more: Neither cancer nor lack of oxygen, the water cover does not cause adverse effects in childrenThe researchers could not determine if the television itself is directly responsible for this deterioration in the brain, or if it is the amount of sedentary time on the sofa that people accumulate while watching TV.” I don’t think it’s necessarily the act of watching television itself that’s so bad for brain health, but it may be an indirect measure of sedentary behavior,” said Priya Palta, assistant professor of medical sciences and epidemiology at Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City. Palta is one of the leading researchers in one of the studies. All three studies were presented virtually Thursday at the American Heart Association’s Conference on Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health. Findings presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. It makes sense that prolonged sedentary behavior could in the end damage people’s brain power, according to the president of the American Heart Association, Dr. Mitch Elkind, head of Columbia University’s Division of Research in Neurological Clinical Outcomes and Population Sciences. It certainly seems to me to be true that both sedentary behavior and the things involved, such as obesity and hypertension and diabetes, could lead to a gradual buildup of brain injury over time,” Elkind said. “Blood vessels also supplement the brain, and heart and blood vessel diseases can lead to brain problems, such as cognitive decline and even dementia.” Two of the studies focused on participants in the Community Atherosclerosis Risk (ARIC) study, a long-term research initiative aimed at the health effects of hardening arteries. More time in front of television, less gray matter
Palta’s studio had nearly 6,500 participants, who tended to watch about the same amount of television over a period of about six years, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.People were placed in three groups (those who never or almost never watched television, those who watched television at times , and those who watched television frequently or very frequently), and underwent a series of brain performance tests as they ageed, to track changes in their abilities.” We found that compared to participants who reported watching very little television, participants who reported watching moderate or high amounts of television had a 7 percent greater deterioration in cognitive function, depending on their performance on cognitive tests over 15 years,” Palta said.

A second study, which also used ARIC data, focused on some 970 people with relatively stable TV use habits, which underwent brain scans to track changes in their brain structure. This research team found that people watching television at times or often had lower volumes of deep gray matter more than a decade later, indicating increased atrophy or brain deterioration, principal investigator Kelley Pettee Gabriel, professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama School of Public Health, said in Birmingham.La gray matter is involved in muscle control, sight, hearing, decision-making and other important brain functions. The higher the volume of gray matter in a person’s brain, the better their ability to remember and reason, in general. The third study also focused on the gray matter of the brain, but used a different set of data from the coronary artery risk development study in young adults, which was long-term. Some 600 people were asked about the average number of hours spent in front of the TV each day during follow-up visits that occurred every five years over two decades. Twenty years after the study began, researchers performed brain MRI to assess how much gray matter each participant still had. This study also found that watching more television was associated with a lower volume of gray matter in the brain at a later age. For every additional hour of television a person watched, on average, lost about 0.5 percent of their gray matter, similar to the level of brain impairment in older adults, said lead researcher Ryan Dougherty, a postdoctoral member of the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore.No it is sufficient to exercise when you are not on the couch
Maybe this isn’t something that can be solved when exercising when you’re not being sedentary either. In all studies, people’s physical activity and exercise habits had no impact on the association between hours spent watching television and their decline in brain function and the volume of gray matter. These findings suggest “that this sedentary behavior could confer an exclusive risk to brain and cognitive health,” Dougherty said in a conference press release. “This is an important finding, given that it is now well established that the neurobiology of dementia, including brain atrophy, begins in middle age. It is a period when modifiable behaviors, such as watching over-television, can be addressed and reduced to encourage healthy brain aging.” Even if you go for a run, it’s good and you can do your 30 minutes a day of physical activity, but if you spend the rest of your time sitting at an office desk and don’t move at all, maybe there are some of the benefits of exercise left,” Elkind said. “Overall, I would say the more you move, the better. Try to do some activity every hour, even if you have to put on a reminder to do so.” Read more: Man isolates hes heses in a tree to avoid infecting his Covid-19 family in IndiaAlso are likely to be more sedentary activities that stimulate the mind more may not be as harmful to the future health of the brain.” Watching television is what we would classify as cognitively passive sedentary behavior, that is, sedentary behavior that doesn’t require too much concentration or thought,” Palta said. “This is in contrast to mentally active sedentary behaviors, such as reading, that would be more stimulating for cognition or require more brain work.”

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Original source in Spanish