Moderate exercise in middle and old age keeps brain working

Moderate exercise may be associated with a reduced risk of dementia. Researchers in Seattle have studied 33 older men and women with mild cognitive impairment, such as problems with thinking and memory. Twenty-three spent 45 to 60 minutes, four days a week, on an exercise bike or treadmill for a six-month period. The others simply did a stretch programme instead. Cognitive function improved in the exercise group, while in the stretch group, it continued to decline with age. The cause of the improvement was not clear but it may be due to the effects of exercise on insulin function. In a separate population-based questionnaire study by the US Mayo Clinic, out of 1324 adults who were free of dementia in 2006-2008, 1126 were found to have normal cognitive function and 198 had mild cognitive impairment. Comparing the two groups, moderate exercise in midlife (50 to 65 years of age) was associated with a 39% reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment and exercise in later life a 32% reduced risk of mental decline. This was true for men and women and included any frequency of moderate exercise. These studies, published in the January 2010 Archives of Neurology, add weight to the argument that fairly moderate exercise can probably benefit late-life mental ability.

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