Sitting Too Long Can Brain Damage, It's The Result Of The Study

Sitting too long is not only bad for the heart and waist, it can also harm the brain. Quoted from Business Insider, Saturday (14/3), someone with more sitting time has a thinner brain structure in the brain region associated with memory. The theory is derived from a new study published in the journal PLOS One.

Thinning in that part of the brain could be a prefix for a decline in cognitive abilities, dementia or Alzheimer's, according to researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In the study, they write that high physical activity is not enough to offset the effects of this inactive behavior.

The UCLA scientists behind the study recruited 35 middle-aged and healthy adult adults between the ages of 45 and 75. Researchers asked about the level of physical activity of the participants and how much time they spent sitting during the workweek.

To assess people's brain health, researchers performed high-resolution MRI scans of participants' brains. They can see near the medial temporal lobe (MTL), the brain region that is essential for memory formation.

Contrary to what some previous researchers have found, participants' level of study has no significant effect on MTL. However, sedentari or sitting behavior that takes too long to impact.

On average, participants sit between three to seven hours each day. The more often they sit, the thinner their MTL as well as with the sub regions of the connected brain. Depletion in the brain region may be a sign of cognitive decline. Therefore, sedentari behavior can improve brain health of someone who is at risk of Alzheimer's.

Some caveats are noteworthy, it is not a big study and because researchers only assess participants at one time, they can not be certain that brain thinning is due only to sedentary behavior. But, the fact that sedentarial behavior is related to brain thinning is true.

In a follow-up study, researchers wanted to follow a group from time to time to better understand whether sitting causes depletion and ensures the influence of demographic factors. They also need to see if walking makes a difference in MTL thickness.