Lifestyle choices could slow familial frontotemporal dementia

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/uoc--lcc010320.php

News Release 8-Jan-2020
University of California - San Francisco

A physically and mentally active lifestyle confers resilience to frontotemporal dementia (FTD), even in people whose genetic profile makes the eventual development of the disease virtually inevitable, according to new research by scientists at the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center.

The research aligns with long-standing findings that exercise and cognitive fitness are one of the best ways to prevent or slow Alzheimer's disease, but is the first study to show that the same types of behaviors can benefit people with FTD, which is caused by a distinct form of brain degeneration.

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Specifically, the researchers found that functional decline, as assessed by participants' family members, was 55 percent slower in the most active 25 percent of participants compared to the least active five percent. "This was a remarkable effect to see so early on," Casaletto said. "If this were a drug, we would be giving it to all of our patients."

The researchers found that participants' lifestyles did not significantly alter the inexorable degeneration of brain tissue associated with FTD, as measured by follow-up MRI scans a year into the study. But even among participants whose brain scans revealed signs of atrophy, the most mentally and physically active participants continued to perform twice as well as the least active participants on cognitive tests. These results suggest that active lifestyles may slow FTD symptoms by providing some form of cognitive resilience to the consequences of brain degeneration.

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Casaletto cautions that the results, though exciting, so far only report a correlation: "It is possible that some participants have less active lifestyles because they have a more severe or aggressive form of FTD, which is already impacting their ability to be active. Clinical trials that manipulate cognitive and physical activity levels in people with FTD mutations are needed to prove that lifestyle changes can alter the course of the disease."

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