Long periods of sitting have been linked to a variety of health issues, including higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, muscle wasting and premature death.
Now, researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles’ Semel Institute and its Center for Cognitive Neuroscience have found that sedentary behavior is a “significant predictor of thinning of the medial temporal lobe.”
The medial temporal lobe, which includes the hippocampus, is the region of the brain critical for new memory formation. Medial temporal atrophy, such as thinning, has been associated with memory loss and has been used to predict Alzheimer’s disease, according to Dr. Joe Nocera, an assistant professor in neurology at Emory University who was not involved in the UCLA study.