People who exercise to keep their heart healthy are at a lower risk of cognitive impairments that come with age, a new study finds.
The benefits of having a healthy heart are several. Now, a new study finds that exercising to keep the heart healthy also results in a lower risk of cognitive impairments that come with age.
"Our body's arteries stiffen with age, and the vessel hardening is believed to begin in the aorta, the main vessel coming out of the heart, before reaching the brain. Indeed, the hardening may contribute to cognitive changes that occur during a similar time frame," explained Claudine Gauthier, first author of the study, in a press statement. "We found that older adults whose aortas were in a better condition and who had greater aerobic fitness performed better on a cognitive test. We therefore think that the preservation of vessel elasticity may be one of the mechanisms that enable exercise to slow cognitive aging."
The study was conducted on 31 young people aged between 18 and 30 years and 54 older adults aged between 55 and 75 years. None of them had any physical or mental health problems. At the start of the study, researchers tested their fitness by exhausting the participants on a workout machine and determining their maximum oxygen intake over a 30 second period. Their cognitive abilities were assessed with the Stroop task, a scientifically validated test that involves asking someone to identify the ink color of a color word that is printed in a different color. Researchers used three MRI scans to evaluate blood flow to the brain and brain activity while they performed the test.
Researchers noted a strong association between age-related declines in executive function, aortic elasticity and cardiorespiratory fitness.
"The link between fitness and brain function may be mediated through preserved cerebrovascular reactivity in periventricular watershed areas that are also associated with cardiorespiratory fitness," Gauthier said. "Although the impact of fitness on cerebral vasculature may however involve other, more complex mechanisms, overall these results support the hypothesis that lifestyle helps maintain the elasticity of arteries, thereby preventing downstream cerebrovascular damage and resulting in preserved cognitive abilities in later life."
This is the first study that linked brain function to fitness. Findings were published online in the journal Neurobiology of Aging. The project was funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Canadian Foundation for, the Ministère du développement économique, de l'innovation et de l'exportation and the Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
