In three new studies from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, researchers found older people who train for better fitness are better at solving cognitive tasks and are less likely to suffer cognitive impairment.
The findings suggest that being fit can protect against mild cognitive impairment in older people.
Common to all three articles is that they are based on data from the world’s largest training study for older adults, the Generation 100 study from the Cardiac Exercise Research Group.
In the study, the team tested the cognitive function of almost 1,000 older people.
They found the men and women who had maintained or increased their physical fitness during the study had better brain health than those whose fitness had declined over the five years/
The cognitive test that the participants took is the same one that is often used to check whether people are at risk of developing dementia.
The test assesses short-term memory, executive function, and the ability to orient oneself in time and space. Scoring below a certain number indicates a risk of mild cognitive impairment.
The team found the greater the increase in a participant’s fitness level during the five years of the study, the lower their probability was of developing mild cognitive impairment.
the researchers also performed MRI scans of the participants’ brains to see how the brain volume and thickness of the cerebral cortex changed throughout the study.
Here, too, the most energetic participants came out best.
Participants who were in good shape when the study started had a thicker cerebral cortex after one, three, and five years, as compared with those who had lower maximum oxygen uptake.
The cerebral cortex is the outermost layer of the brain and is important for several important brain functions, such as attention, ability to make choices, working memory, abstract thinking, and memory.
This part of the brain becomes thinner with age, and thinning of the cerebral cortex in different areas is linked to different types of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia.
The findings suggest that the most important thing is that people actually train in a way that increases their fitness, regardless of whether you get organized help to be physically active or not.
If you care about brain health, please read studies about common health problem linked to higher risk of dementia, and medical cannabis that can reduce some brain disorder.
For more information about cognitive health, please see recent studies about why some older people can keep their minds dementia-free, and results show that lack of this vitamin may lead to dementia.
The study is published in Sports Medicine and was conducted by Ekaterina Zotcheva et al.
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