Cardiorespiratory Fitness vs Dementia Mortality

Many thanks to Dr. Michael M. for pointing out this fascinating study released online prior to publication next month in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.  Think back for a minute to yesterday's post regarding sexual activity & heart disease in which those authors stated that sexual activity was equivalent to 3-5 metabolic equivalents (METS).

One way to accurately measure one's cardiorespiratory fitness is via maximal treadmill exercise test in which one doesn't stop once you've reached a pre-specified percentage of your predicted maximal heart rate but rather only due to exhaustion.

When a treadmill test is performed in such a fashion, cardiorespiratory fitness is labeled low for those unable to exceed 10METS.  Moderate fitness is classified as 9.9-12.2METS while high fitness is >12.2METS.  In other words, one doesn't have to be very fit in order to engage in sexual activity.

But as it turns out, besides allowing you to engage in sex, METS also have some predictive value as to your risk of dying from dementia.  In fact, those with moderate or high levels of fitness had less than half the risk of dying from dementia when compared to their cohorts with low fitness.

The renown Cooper Clinic noted this association after following 14,811 women & 45,078 men for an average of 17 years after they'd completed a preventive health evaluation, including said treadmill test.  These findings were regardless of age, sex, body mass index, smoking, alcohol consumption, abnormal EKG (!), and even health status.  If you're looking for incremental benefit, every 1-MET increase in fitness was correlated to a 14% lower risk of dying from dementia.

So besides sex, you've now got another reason to get fit and stay fit.

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