Exercise boosts language comprehension in monolingual older adults by enhancing cardiorespiratory fitness.
Regular exercise has long been known to protect cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and processing speed as we age. A recent study found that exercise may also improve older adults' language comprehension by enhancing cardiorespiratory fitness—the body’s capacity to deliver and use oxygen-rich blood.
The study included 160 monolingual or bilingual older adults. Half of the participants followed a 26-week home-based high-intensity interval training (HIIT) program with three weekly sessions, starting with a four-week familiarization period. Afterward, they aimed for over 80% of their peak heart rate. Researchers measured their cardiorespiratory fitness and language comprehension before and after the intervention, using reaction times to spoken-word monitoring tasks.
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They found that monolinguals who participated in the HIIT program responded faster on comprehension tasks than non-exercisers. This improvement was linked to increased VO2peak (a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness), supporting the idea that exercise boosts language processing abilities in older adults. However, bilinguals did not experience these improvements, suggesting that the effects of exercise on language processing may be influenced by language proficiency.
These findings support the growing evidence demonstrating that cardiorespiratory fitness protects cognitive function. HIIT robustly improves cardiorespiratory fitness. Learn more in this clip featuring Dr. Martin Gibala.