Exercise is not only a great way to fight back against sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss), but it has also been linked to decreased dementia risk.
For instance, a 2022 paper found that just 3,800 steps a day may lower your likelihood of developing dementia by 25%, with increasing benefits up to 9,800 steps.
Strength training has been shown to help protect the parts of the brain especially vulnerable to Alzheimer’s, too.
And in 2018, a 44-year-long study published in the journal Nature showed a link between cardiovascular fitness, as measured by a cycling test, and an 88% lower incidence of dementia among women.
What did the study show about cardio and dementia?
The researchers followed over 1,400 women, aged 38-60, for 44 years (starting in 1968).
Of these participants, 191 women completed a cardiovascular fitness test on a stationary bike using intervals (periods of intense workouts with some lighter breaks).
These 191 were tested for dementia in 1974, 1980, 2000, 2005 and 2009.
Of the women who were deemed to have high cardiovascular fitness following the cycling test at the start of the study, 5% went on to develop dementia, compared to 32% of those with moderate cardiovascular fitness levels.
High cardiovascular fitness participants were 88% less likely to go on to have dementia, too. And dementia onset was almost 10 years later among the high cardiovascular fitness women.
A separate study found people who cycled regularly were 19% less likely to develop dementia.
However you achieve it, it seems cardiovascular fitness is key to lowering your likelihood of experiencing dementia.
Why might cardio lower your risk of dementia?
Well, the researchers point out that this only showed a link and not a causal relationship – “it remains unclear whether the association between physical activity and dementia is mediated by social and cognitive stimulation rather than by level of physical fitness,” they wrote.
Women with high cardiovascular fitness levels in their study, for instance, were more likely to have their own income and tended to have less hypertension.
But the scientists speculated that the link might be affected by “indirect effects [of exercise] such as influence on hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, obesity, and diabetes mellitus and direct effects on the brain, with, for example, enhancement of neuronal structures, neurotransmitter synthesis, and growth factors”.
Though we don’t fully understand the link between dementia and exercise yet, this is one of many papers that have found a link between movement and a lower risk of developing the condition.
