Exercise & Dementia Risk

There are 50 million people living with dementia worldwide and this number will double every 20 years – by 2050 this number will reach over 132 million. There is no cure and groups from whole regions/countries down to individual families are under-resourced to handle the “rising dementia crisis”.

Enter everyone’s hero – exercise. You shouldn’t need an(other) excuse to keep super fit BUT in case you do…

A recent study in Neurology finds that greater midlife cardiovascular fitness is associated with decreased dementia risk (controlling for socioeconomic, lifestyle & medical confounders).

How great is exercise? High cardiovascular fitness delayed dementia onset by nearly 10 years compared to low fitness (and by 5 years compared with medium fitness).

REFERENCES
Hörder H et al. Neurology 2018 Mar 14.
Dementia Australia.
Alzheimer’s Disease International.