Daily activity that can reveal the age of your brain

The speed at which you work can reveal deep information on the aging rate of your brain – slower walkers with smaller brains and fundamental differences in crucial structures.

This may seem harmless, but the speed at which you are walking from point A to point B can say long on the internal functioning of your body and your mind. Research has shown that the speed you are walking to go to the store, the park or the bus stop can predict your risk of hospitalization, heart attack, or even death. In fact, a person’s walking speed can even be used to reveal their cognitive aging rhythm.

The walking speed test allows you to assess a person’s functional capacities, that is to say their ability to perform daily household tasks and to keep their autonomy. It also makes it possible to reveal its degree of fragility and to predict its rehabilitation after a stroke.

Although it is normal for people to walk more slowly as you get older, a precipitated decrease in a person’s walking speed could indicate that something more serious happens.

“When the normal rhythm of walking of a person decreases, this is often associated with a decline in underlying health,” explains Christina Dieli-Conwright, professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, who studies the effects of the exercise on the prognosis of cancer.

“The person may suffer from a chronic disease that prevented him from moving enough or made him sedentary. This most likely means that it has undergone a decrease in its muscular strength and its joint mobility, which, unfortunately, still aggravates its health, ”explains Dieli-Conwright.

To carry out the walking speed test, simply a stopwatch and a distance measurement instrument, such as a tape. There are two common versions.

If you are outside and have a lot of space, you can try the 10 m walking speed test. Start by measuring 5 m, then an additional 10 m. To start, it is recommended to walk 5 m to reach your normal speed, then walk at your normal rate for 10 m. To calculate your walking speed, simply divide 10 m by the number of seconds necessary to browse this distance.

If you are at home and the space is more limited, you can try the 4 m walking speed test. This test is to measure 1 m, then 4 m. The idea is to use the first meter to gain speed, then time the time you need to walk 4 m at your usual pace. To calculate your speed, divide four meters by the number of seconds it took you to travel this distance.

Alternatively, there are many applications that you can use to measure your walking speed, including fitness trackers like Walkmeter, Mapmywalk, Strava and Google Fit, which use GPS to follow the distance and time, allowing them to calculate your speed.

Studies have shown that walking speed is a significant indicator of life expectancy in the elderly. For example, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have gathered the results of nine studies that have followed more than 34,000 adults aged 65 and over in community, aged 6 to 21. The study has shown that walking speed was significantly associated with longevity. For example, men with the slowest walking speed at 75 were 19 % of them to live 10 years, compared to 87 % for men with the fastest walking speed.

One possible explanation is that people already sick tend to be less mobile. However, a French study of 2009 revealed that even among healthy adults over the age of 65, the participants walking slowly presented about three times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease during the study period than those walking faster.

“Walking seems to be such a simple thing – most of us do not think of it, we simply do it,” explains Line Rasmussen, principal researcher in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience from Duke University, North Carolina.

“But walking is actually based on many different body systems that work together: your bones and muscles carry you and move you, your eyes help you see where you go, your heart and your lungs circulate blood and oxygen, and your brain and your nerves coordinate all of this,” adds Rasmussen.

According to Rasmussen, as we age, the function of these systems begins to slow down – and a slower speed speed can therefore reflect this general decline and be a sign of advanced aging.

This does not only apply to the elderly. In a 2019 study, Rasmussen and his colleagues found that, even in people aged 45, the walking speed could predict the rhythm of aging of their brain and their bodies.

Rasmussen and Duke University researchers followed 904 people aged 45 participating in the multidisciplinary study on the health and development of Dunedin, a longitudinal research project that followed the lives of more than 1,000 people born between 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand. The health and cognitive functions of the members of this cohort have been assessed regularly throughout their lives.

“I was surprised by the magnitude of the variations in walking speed between people of the same age,” explains Rasmussen. “We could expect that every 45 years are located somewhere between the two, but some were walking as quickly as 20-year-old healthy young people, while others were walking as slow as much older adults,” she said.

The study revealed that people aged 45 with a slow march had signs of “accelerated aging”, their lungs, their teeth and their immune system being less efficient than those who walked faster. They also had “biomarkers” associated with faster aging, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and reduced cardiorepiratory capacity.

The study also revealed that slow walkers presented other signs of poor physical health, such as a lower grip force and increased difficulties in rising from a chair.

Rasmussen and his colleagues also found that slow walkers had advanced cognitive aging signs. For example, they tended to obtain lower results from IQ tests, as well as less good results for memory tests, processing speed, reasoning and other cognitive functions. MRIs have also shown that this cognitive deterioration was accompanied by observable changes in the participants’ brain.

The slow walkers had a smaller brain, a finer neocortex – the external layer of the brain, which controls the thought and processing of information – and a larger white substance. Curiously, even the face of slow walkers was considered aging faster than that of other participants.

In total, research suggests that the body and brain of slow walkers age faster than those of fast walkers. Signs also indicate that these health differences were present from an early age, researchers who were able to predict the walking speed of people aged 45 thanks to intelligence, language and motor skills carried out while the participants were only three years old.

“What surprised me the most was discovering a link between walking speed at 45 and cognitive capacities from early childhood,” explains Rasmussen. “This suggests that walking speed is not only a sign of aging, but also an indicator of brain health throughout life. »»

However, readers who consider themselves slow walkers should not be discouraged too much, because there are many solutions to improve their walking speed. As part of his research on cancer, Dieli-Conwright develops exercise programs to help people convalescence after chemotherapy to find strength. Participants are advised to increase the duration and intensity of their walking exercises every three to four weeks to improve their physical condition. And there are even simpler solutions.

“Take advantage of every opportunity to walk more regularly, because staying physically active is essential,” advises Dieli-Conwright. His advice include park further from his destination, find friends for a friendly walk or take her pet at the Park in the neighborhood.

“It is important to take breaks to walk, especially for people with sedentary work,” explains Dieli-Conwright. “Even if it is only a five -minute break to go to the toilet, or a small five -minute walk around the house pâté, it is essential to interrupt this sitting time. »»