“High-intensity exercise once or twice a week has an excellent preventive effect on cognitive decline,” reports a study that finds a ‘weekend warrior’ exercise pattern, where individuals engage in high-intensity workouts once or twice a week, can lower the risk of cognitive decline. According to the medical community on the 30th, a research team led by Professor Gary O’Donovan from North Andes University in Colombia tracked the relationship between exercise patterns and cognitive decline over 16 years in 10,033 residents of Mexico City, publishing their findings in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The study involved residents with an average age of 51, surveying them from 1998 to 2004 and conducting mild cognitive impairment tests from 2015 to 2019. In the initial survey, participants were categorized into four groups: 7,945 non-exercisers, 726 weekend warriors who exercised once or twice a week, 1,326 who exercised more than three times a week, and 2,088 who were both weekend warriors and exercised more than thrice weekly.
Cognitive decline was assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), with scores below 22 out of 30 indicating mild cognitive impairment (MCI). During an average 16-year follow-up period, 2,400 individuals were identified with MCI, 26% of whom were in the non-exercising group. The prevalence in the weekend warrior and regular exercise groups was 14% and 18.5%, respectively.
Even after adjusting for factors like age, education, smoking, sleep patterns, diet, and alcohol consumption, the weekend warriors had the lowest risk for mild cognitive impairment, 25% lower than non-exercisers and 11% lower than the regular exercise group. Although the study, being observational, cannot establish causality, the research team suggested that exercising at least once or twice a week during middle age could theoretically reduce the risk of dementia by 13%.