Cardiorespiratory fitness helps prevent age-related brain volume losses.
The brain loses about 5 percent of its volume every decade after the age of 40 years, likely due to the death of neurons in the gray matter. These losses contribute to age-related cognitive decline and loss of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change and adapt to new exposures. Findings from a 2020 study suggest that having greater cardiorespiratory fitness helps prevent age-related brain volume losses.
Cardiorespiratory fitness is a measure of the body’s aerobic capacity – the ability to deliver oxygen to skeletal muscles – during sustained physical activity. Poor cardiorespiratory fitness, along with dyslipidemia, family history, hypertension, age, cigarette smoking, diabetes mellitus, obesity, and physical inactivity, increases a person’s risk for cardiovascular disease and death. The most accurate way to assess cardiorespiratory fitness involves measuring maximal oxygen uptake, often referred to as VO2 max, during a graded exercise test in a laboratory, clinical, or research setting.
The study involved more than 2,000 healthy adults (average age, 52 years) who were enrolled in a larger, ongoing study. The investigators measured the participants' cardiorespiratory fitness, assessed via VO2 max while riding on an exercise bike. They collected the participants' demographic data, and they measured their brain volumes via magnetic resonance imaging scans.
They found that participants with greater cardiorespiratory fitness tended to have greater gray matter and total brain volumes. They also had more clusters of gray and white matter tissue in brain areas responsible for cognitive function rather than movement. These findings held true even when taking the participants' ages, education levels, smoking status, blood pressure, and body weights into consideration.
These findings suggest that having greater cardiorespiratory fitness ameliorates some of the brain volume losses associated with aging and underscore the importance of exercising throughout the lifespan. Learn more about the health benefits of exercise in our overview article.
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