Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Health & Fitness

New study explores whether regular exercise can lower your risk of dementia

Does prioritizing your fitness help protect your brain health?

By
man exercising running around outdoors dark grey sky
Zakaria / Pexels

We all want to protect our brains and bodies from disease and decline and stay sharp and vibrant throughout the decades. Regular exercise is part of a healthy lifestyle, and it brings a range of benefits, from lowering blood pressure to perking up your mood and prompting the release of feel-good endorphins. Your training habits can benefit your physical health and your brain health, too. For example, an interesting study showed that people who took part in aerobic fitness training had increased brain volume and white and gray matter. 

Physical activity can sharpen problem-solving, memory, and learning and reduce depression or anxiety. Another study concluded that cognitive decline is nearly twice as common in adults who are inactive compared to active adults. In a recent study, researchers wanted to look at how exercise lowered the risk of dementia. Let’s take a look at the study and the results.

Recommended Videos

The study

guy doing push ups working out white background plank pose
Keiji Yoshiki / Pexels

In a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the researchers wanted to investigate how cardiorespiratory fitness affected the risk of dementia, taking genetic predisposition into account. The researchers looked at data from 61,214 adult participants who didn’t have dementia. 

Related

The researchers identified dementia cases through medical records and assessed genetic predisposition. They used a six-minute submaximal cycling test to determine the participants’ cardiovascular fitness and estimate maximal oxygen consumption or VO2 max. The participants also took neuropsychological tests to evaluate their reaction time, processing speed, and memory. The researchers looked closely at the data to analyze the relationship between cardiovascular fitness and genetic predisposition.

The results

man on treadmill picture running by window
Will Picture This / Pexels

In conclusion, the researchers reported a positive association between a high cardiovascular fitness level and cognitive function across all age groups. High cardiovascular fitness levels were associated with a 40% lower overall risk of dementia and a delayed dementia onset by 1.48 years on average. For individuals with a high predisposed risk of dementia, high cardiovascular fitness was associated with a 35% lower risk of dementia.

What is cardiovascular fitness?

man running with headphones on beach.
Leandro Boogalu / Pexels

Cardiovascular fitness refers to your ability to deliver oxygen to your working muscles and your heart. Another interesting study revealed that higher cardiovascular fitness levels were linked with a lower risk of heart and blood vessel disorders and complications.

What we can learn from this research

high intensity interval training man climbing a rope circuit training high intensity exercise
Leonardho / Pexels

This research shows that having good fitness levels could lower your risk of dementia, delay its onset by up to 18 months, and enhance your cognitive performance. This study shows us that even those with a higher genetic risk of developing dementia can lower that risk with regular exercise. Prioritizing your fitness helps protect your brain health, heart health, and more.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Steph Green
Steph Green
Steph Green is a content writer specializing in healthcare, wellness, and nutrition. With over ten years of experience, she…
Can music help you run faster for longer? Here’s what the science shows
Could musical fuel help you finish that tough run?
man running marathon headphones black t shirt outside

Putting your headphones on and setting off into the distance helps you drown out the outside world and focuses your mind on the music. We all have our favorite playlists of tunes that captivate and absorb us in the melodies, harmonies, and beats. If you’re like many runners out there, grabbing your headphones, water bottle, and running shoes might be one of your favorite things to do.

Could listening to high-energy songs while running give you a boost so you can pick up the pace and finish that tough run? Can music make you run faster for longer? Researchers set out to find some answers and determine how music impacts running. Let’s look at the research.
The study

Read more
Will you exercise more if you stick to what you enjoy? New study dives in
Are you more likely to put the effort in if you have more control over the exercise intensity?
Man on treadmill with sleeveless shirt in gym

Maybe you’re a runner who loves feeling the breeze on your cheeks while zooming through the trail or city streets. Maybe pumping iron and feeling your muscles swell is your thing, or practicing yoga, going swimming, or powering through a high-intensity interval training class. We favor different types of exercise at varying intensities, and all of these different types have benefits. Exercising is part of a healthy lifestyle. One question that comes to mind is whether you will exercise more if you stick to what you enjoy. Are you more likely to put the effort in when it’s something you tend to like more or if you have control over the exercise or the intensity? Recently, researchers set out to find some answers.
The study

In a study published in the International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, the researchers wanted to determine if participants trained more frequently when they were allowed to self-regulate their exercise intensity according to their own preferences and tolerance. They wanted to know how to motivate people to exercise more and suggested that educating them on the health benefits of exercise isn’t enough to get people to take action and get moving.

Read more
Bulking vs. cutting: A beginner’s guide to changing your body composition
Bulking and cutting can help you adjust your body fat composition and achieve your fitness goals.
Man eating fruit.

Even small fluctuations in weight and body composition make a difference when it comes to certain sports, events, and competitions. For example, some boxing divisions work with a 6-pound range, and bodybuilding competitions take into account body weight as well as muscle definition and other factors. Body composition refers to the percentage of muscle, fat, and bone in your body, and improving your body composition doesn’t just change how you look; it can also help you excel in certain areas, including lifting and your overall athletic performance. 

You might want to adjust your body composition due to a specific goal you have in mind about how you want to look, the weight range you’d like to be in, or the fitness or lifting challenge you’d like to conquer. This is where bulking vs. cutting comes in. People use bulking and cutting to change their percentage of body fat and muscle or tip the scales in a certain direction. You don’t have to be a bodybuilder to want to learn more about bulking and cutting. Let’s look at the difference between the two, what you should and shouldn’t eat, and top tips for bulking or cutting safely.
What is bulking?

Read more