Results from the largest study to date on whether lifestyle changes can prevent Alzheimer’s disease have been announced at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference and published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias are a major public health priority due to the growing number of affected individuals and the profound economic, psychological, and social burdens of the disease in most countries worldwide.
These results showed that older adults (aged 60-79) at elevated risk for Alzheimer’s who engaged in a program of lifestyle changes (including BrainHQ online brain exercises, physical exercise, and a brain-healthy diet) saw significant gains in cognitive function.
The trial, which is the largest to date on whether lifestyle changes can help prevent Alzheimer’s disease, was funded by the Alzheimer’s Association and enrolled 2,111 older adults (aged 60-79) at elevated risk for Alzheimer’s (due to medical and family history) and randomized participants into a coached lifestyle intervention or a health education group for two years.
The first group – referred to as “structured” by the researchers – received at least one monthly coaching session over two years with guidance on using BrainHQ online brain training (15-20 minutes, three times weekly), engaging in aerobic exercise, flexibility, and resistance training (10-35 minutes, eight times weekly), and eating a brain-healthy diet (emphasizing healthy greens and whole grains, adding fish weekly, and choosing healthier snacks). The second group – referred to as “unstructured” – met once every four months and received general encouragement to lead a healthier lifestyle.
The researchers found the structured group improved their cognitive function substantially over the two-year period. The unstructured group improved as well – however the improvements in the structured group were significantly larger. The structured group had gains of a half a standard deviation, which for an average performer at the 50th percentile would mean moving to nearly the 70th percentile.
This study is one of the World Wide FINGER studies, based on the 2015 FINGER Study in Finland. That first FINGER study found a lifestyle intervention – focused on brain exercise, physical fitness, diet, and monitoring risk factors (e.g., blood pressure) – improved cognitive function in older adults at risk for dementia.
The results confirm the findings of other studies. For example, the 2024 J-MINT PRIME Tamba study from Japan (using BrainHQ’s Japanese version) showed significant gains in cognition even among those at elevated risk of dementia. That study compared three lifestyle interventions from the J-MINT FINGER trial in Japan (diet, physical exercise, and brain exercise) against a control and found a 41% gain in a standard measure of global cognition in the BrainHQ group.
Dr. Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science says, in a statement provided to Digital Journal: “You can adopt a structured set of brain-healthy activities – including brain training with BrainHQ, better nutrition, and regular exercise – and substantially improve cognitive function, rather than face an inevitable future of decline.”
The JAMA research paper is titled “Structured vs Self-Guided Multidomain Lifestyle Interventions for Global Cognitive Function: The US POINTER Randomized Clinical Trial.”