Mid-life Fitness in Women Linked to Lower Dementia Risk, Research Suggests

The CBS Evening News reported, “A new study out today finds women who are physically fit may be 90 percent less likely to develop dementia.” According to medical contributor Tara Narula, MD, explained that researchers following women in their 40s found that, after testing for fitness levels and the rates of dementia over a period of nearly 40 years, women with the highest levels of fitness “on average developed dementia at a rate of about five percent.” USA Today reports that the study published online March 14 in Neurology revealed that “the few highly fit women who did develop dementia became symptomatic at age 90 on average, 11 years later than the moderately fit,” the study found. TIME reports that in contrast, “women with lower fitness had a 41% higher risk of developing dementia than women with average fitness.”