HHS HealthBeat (February 3, 2010)

Exercise, age and thinking

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

An active body may help older people keep a sharp mind. A Mayo Clinic study found this in data on more than 1,300 people, many of them in their early 80s.

Yonas Geda and his colleagues were looking for signs of mild cognitive impairment – when the mind is a bit less sharp than it should be. They found mild cognitive impairment was less likely in people who were moderately active in middle age and older.

Geda says that’s a good sign:

[Yonas Geda speaks] `I think the bottom line is, you know, this finding is kind of encouraging to keep exercising.’’

Moderate exercise includes things such as brisk walking for at least two and a half hours over the course of a week.

The study in Archives of Neurology was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011