Better Cardiorespiratory Fitness Connected to Lower Risk for Developing Alzheimer’s

By Jonathan Springston, Editor, Relias Media

Researchers have learned that simply becoming more physically active could be an important way to lower risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.

In the Veterans Health Administration database, investigators identified more than 649,000 patients age 30 to 90 years who completed an exercise treadmill test (ETT) between 2000 and 2017 and who had not been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the time of the ETT. The mean age was 61 years (5.7% were women and 16.6% African American).

Using metabolic equivalents, the researchers split the population into five age-specific groups based on how they performed on the ETT: lowest fit, low fit, moderate fit, fit, and highest fit. The average follow-up period was about nine years.

The researchers observed how Alzheimer’s case rates declined as fitness level increased. For example, among the lowest fit group, there were 9.5 cases of Alzheimer’s per 1,000 person-years vs. 6.4 cases for the highest fit group.

Although the study cohort was gigantic, most were white men, so that makes it hard to generalize these results to other populations. Also, these are the results of a preliminary study, so it will be important to see how these findings hold up under the scrutiny of the review process. Still, clinicians might have another reason to encourage patients to engage in a few sessions of brisk walking each week.

For more on this and related subjects, be sure to read the latest issues of Integrative Medicine Alert and Neurology Alert.