Exercising past 50 may help ward off dementia
Women who are fit at 50 are five times less likely to get dementia, long-term research has suggested.
A Swedish study of 191 women checked their fitness levels and then tracked them for 44 years.
Participants were measured for their cardiovascular activity on exercise bikes.
The research, published online by the journal Neurology, found that those with the highest fitness levels when first assessed had just a five per cent chance of developing dementia in subsequent decades.
This compared with rates of 25 per cent among those who performed moderately.
Rates were even worse among those with low fitness and among those so unfit they could not complete the tests, the study by the University of Gothenburg found.
Overall, those who dropped out of the tests had dementia rates of 45 per cent in later life. When highly fit women developed the disease, it came on average 11 years later than among those with moderate levels of fitness — at the age of 90 instead of 79.
“It’s possible that improving people’s cardiovascular fitness in middle age could delay or even prevent them from developing dementia,” said Dr. Helena Horder, from the University of Gothenburg.
For the study, 191 women with an average age of 50 took a bicycle exercise test until they were exhausted, to measure their peak cardiovascular capacity. The average peak workload was measured at 103 watts.
A total of 40 women met the criteria for a high fitness level, or 120 watts or higher, while 92 women were in the medium fitness category.
A total of 59 women were in the low fitness category, defined as a peak workload of 80 watts or less, or having their exercise tests stopped because of high blood pressure, chest pain or other cardiovascular problems.
Over the next 44 years, the women were tested for dementia six times and during that time 44 of them developed dementia.
Five per cent of the highly fit women developed dementia, compared with 25 per cent of moderately fit women and 32 per cent of the women with low fitness.