Cardio Fitness Activities Help Young Adults Preserve Thinking Skills in Middle Age

A latest study uncovers the benefits of cardio fitness activities like running and swimming. Researchers say these exercises help young adults preserve their memory and thinking skills in middle age.

The study, conducted by the American Academy of Neurology, states that young adults who actively participate in cardio fitness activities such as running, swimming, biking or cardio fitness classes have better memory and thinking skills in their middle age i.e. between 43-55 years.

"Many studies show the benefits to the brain of good heart health," study author David R. Jacobs, Jr, PhD, with the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis said in a news statement. "This is one more important study that should remind young adults of the brain health benefits of cardio fitness activities such as running, swimming, biking or cardio fitness classes."

Cardiorespiratory fitness is a measure of how well your body transports oxygen to the muscles and the ability of the muscles to absorb the oxygen during exercise.

The results are based on the study conducted on 2,747 healthy people with an average age of 25. These subjects participated in a treadmill test during the first year of the study and also 20 years later. Researchers conducted cognitive tests 25 years later after the start of the study in order to measure the verbal memory, psychomotor speed i.e. association between thinking skills and physical movement and executive function.

During the first test, the participants stayed on the treadmill for an average of 10 minutes. And twenty years later the number dropped by an average of 2.9 minutes.   In the second  test, every additional minute they completed on the treadmill during the first test, they were able to recall 0.12 more words more accurately on the memory test of 15 words and  replaced 0.92 more numbers with meaningless symbols in the test of psychomotor speed 25 years later.  The result was the same after adjusting for variables like smoking, diabetes and high cholesterol.

Those who had lesser reduction in their time completed on the treadmill test 20 years later were more likely to do better in executive function test when compared to those who could not complete the test or took longer. 

"These changes were significant, and while they may be modest, they were larger than the effect from one year of aging," Jacobs said. "Other studies in older individuals have shown that these tests are among the strongest predictors of developing dementia in the future. One study showed that every additional word remembered on the memory test was associated with an 18-percent decrease in the risk of developing dementia after 10 years."

According to the researchers, these findings help in early identification of those at a high risk of developing dementia and also in treating those vulnerable patients.

The finding was documented in the journal Neurology.