The Dementia-Fitness Factor

Women: if you want to stave off dementia in your later years, researchers say you should get moving now. The medical journal Neurology recently reported findings from a study that revealed middle-aged women with high cardiovascular fitness levels were almost 90% less likely to develop dementia in older age than women with just moderate degree of aerobic fitness.

“These findings are exciting because it’s possible that improving cardiovascular fitness in middle age could delay or even prevent [women] from developing dementia,” stated the study’s lead author, Helena Horder, PhD, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Research data analysis showed that if the highly fit women developed dementia at all, it was at around age 90, which is much later – almost 11 years – than moderately fit women.

While the results are promising, the research was culled from a rather small sample (almost 200) of only Swedish women, so the authors acknowledge that there is definitely more to do. “This study does not show cause and effect between cardiovascular fitness and dementia; it only shows association. More research is needed to see if improved fitness could have a positive effect on the risk of dementia and also to look at when during a lifetime a high fitness level is most important.”

—
Photo Credit: Osckay Mark / Shutterstock.com