A link between dementia onset and cardiovascular fitness was found in a study that followed 191 women for 44 years, said a study published Wednesday in the medical journal Neurology.
Researchers found that middle-aged women with a high-degree of cardiovascular fitness were 90 percent less likely to develop dementia later in life than those with moderate levels.
The study looked at a sub-sample of Swedish women aged 38 to 60 who were first examined and tested back in 1968, the website Live Science reported and the findings suggest that physical fitness in midlife benefitted the brain along with the heart.
The study found the fittest women who tended to develop trouble with memory and thinking did so an average of 11 years later than participants rated as moderately fit.
The 191 women in the study completed ergometer cycling tests in 1968 to evaluate their cardiovascular fitness, CNN reported. They were judged on their workload, measured by how much weight or resistance could be added to the bicycle before they became fatigued.
Based on the tests, the women were separated into three groups – with 59 deemed in the "low fitness" group, 92 were "medium fitness," and 40 were "high fitness." Then they were followed over a 44-year period until 2012 when researchers tracked the women's health, particularly who was diagnosed with dementia and who was not.
Helena Horder, lead author of the study from the Centre for Aging and Health at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said the findings suggest that good heart health is connected to good brain health, per Live Science.
"Cardiovascular dysfunction and vascular aging are systemic conditions that affect all major target organs, including the brain," said Nicole L. Spartano, of the Boston University School of Medicine, and Tiia Ngandu, of the National Institute for Health and Welfare, in Finland, in a Neurology editorial that accompanied the study.
"It follows that cardiovascular disease, subclinical cardiovascular conditions, and cardiovascular risk factors are associated with an elevated risk for developing dementia. These associations are important because they reveal a potential opportunity to prevent dementia through management and treatment of CVD and its risk factors with both pharmaceutical options (such as promising examples from antihypertension medication trials) and lifestyle interventions that improve cardiovascular health."
The editorial suggested that additional research was still needed to find out if the link between fitness and dementia was due solely to the influence of heart health on brain health, or whether physical activity influences the brain independently of the activity's cardiovascular effects, per Live Science.
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