High levels of physical fitness are linked to a lower risk of dementia for people with a genetic predisposition for the disease, according to a new study.

Enhancing cardiorespiratory fitness could therefore be a strategy when a patient has a high genetic predisposition for Alzheimer’s disease—and researchers say it may be able to reduce the danger by up to 35%.

High cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF)–the capacity of the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to muscles–is linked with better cognitive performance and lower risk of dementia long term, suggested the findings published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Scientists say that CRF declines increasingly every decade as we age and skeletal muscle is lost. The lower the CRF the stronger the predictor of strokes and heart attacks—and an early death from any cause, according to previous research.

Most previous studies that investigating the impact of CRF on cognitive function or dementia risk included only small numbers of participants, but now Swedish scientists have studied a large sample of 61,000 people.

All dementia-free, between the ages of 39 and 70, they were followed for up to 12 years after their enrollment in the UK Biobank study between 2009 and 2010.

A six-minute exercise test on a stationary bike was completed at the outset to estimate CRF, while cognitive function was estimated using neuropsychological tests. Genetic predisposition for dementia was estimated using the polygenic risk score for Alzheimer’s disease.

During the follow-up period of up to 12 years, 553 people (0.9%) were diagnosed with dementia.

For the analysis, participants were divided into three equal-sized groups standardized for age and sex according to their CRF scores, and it showed that people with high CRF had higher cognitive function and a lower risk of dementia.

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“Compared with people with low CRF, the incidence rate ratio of all dementia was 0.6 for people with high CRF—and onset of dementia was delayed by 1.48 years,” said study author Professor Weili Xu, of the Karolinska Institute.

“A high CRF also reduced all dementia risk by 35% among people with a moderate or high polygenic risk score.”

She pointed out that it was an observational study, and as such, can’t establish cause and effect.

Further research on the relationship between CRF and brain health, especially in older people—and on the mechanisms by which CRF modifies the relationship between genetic risk and dementia—is needed.

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But Prof. Xu said, “Our study shows that higher CRF is associated with better cognitive function and decreased dementia risk.”

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