High levels of fitness are linked to a lower risk of dementia in people with a genetic predisposition to the disease, according to a new study.
Improving cardiorespiratory fitness could therefore be a strategy when a patient has a strong genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers say this could reduce the danger by up to 35%.
High cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) – the ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to deliver oxygen to muscles – is linked to better cognitive performance and a lower risk of long-term dementia, the findings suggest. published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Scientists say that CRF declines more and more each decade as we age and skeletal muscle disappears. The lower the CRF, the stronger the predictor of strokes and heart attacks, as well as premature death from any cause, according to previous research.
Most previous studies investigating the impact of CRF on cognitive function or dementia risk included only a small number of participants, but the Swedish scientists have now studied a large sample of 61,000 people.
All unharmed, aged between 39 and 70, they were followed for up to 12 years after their registration in the UK Biobank study between 2009 and 2010.
A six-minute exercise test on a stationary bicycle was performed at baseline to estimate CRF, while cognitive function was estimated using neuropsychological testing. Genetic predisposition to dementia was estimated using the Alzheimer’s disease polygenic risk score.
During the follow-up period of up to 12 years, 553 people (0.9%) were diagnosed with dementia.
For the analysis, participants were divided into three equal-sized groups, standardized for age and gender, based on their CRF scores, and this showed that people with high CRF had lower cognitive function higher and a lower risk of dementia.
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“Compared with people with low CRF, the incidence rate of all dementias was 0.6 for people with high CRF, and the onset of dementia was delayed by 1.48 years,” a said study author Professor Weili Xu of the Karolinska Institute.
“High CRF also reduced any risk of dementia by 35% in people with a moderate or high polygenic risk score.”
She emphasized that this was an observational study and as such could not establish cause and effect.
Further research into the relationship between CRF and brain health, particularly in older adults, as well as the mechanisms by which CRF modifies the relationship between genetic risk and dementia, is needed.
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But Professor Xu said: “Our study shows that higher CRF is associated with better cognitive function and a decreased risk of dementia. »
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