Abstract
Background: Research on the association between physical inactivity and cognitive decline and dementia is dominated by studies with short-term follow-up, that might be biased by reverse causality. Objective: Investigate the long-term association between physical activity, cognition, and the rate of age-associated cognitive decline. Methods: We investigated the association between late-life physical activity and executive functioning and rate of decline of executive abilities during follow-up of up to 16 years, in 3553 participants of the prospective Rotterdam Study cohort. Measurement took place in 1997–1999, 2002–2004, 2009–2011, and 2014–2015. Results: At baseline (age ± 72 years), higher levels of physical activity were associated with higher levels of executive functioning (adjusted mean difference = 0.03, 95% CI: 0.00 ; 0.06, p = 0.03). This difference remained intact up to 16 years of follow-up. The level of physical activity at baseline was unrelated to the rate of decline of executive abilities over time, in the whole group (adjusted mean difference in change time*physical activity = 0.00, 95% CI: -0.00 ; 0.01, p = 0.31). However, stratification by APOE genotype showed that the accelerated decline of executive abilities observed in those with the ApoE-ε4 allele might be attenuated by higher levels of physical activity in late adulthood (ApoE-ε4 carriers: B time*physical activity = 0.01, 95% CI: 0.00 ; 0.01, p = 0.03). Conclusion: Higher levels of physical activity in late adulthood are related to higher levels of executive functioning, up to 16 years of follow-up. Accelerated decline of executive abilities observed in those with the ApoE-ε4 allele might be mitigated by higher levels of physical activity.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 71-81 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | European Journal of Epidemiology |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 27 Sept 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jan 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors are grateful to the study participants, the staff from the Rotterdam Study and the participating general practitioners and pharmacists. The Rotterdam Study is funded by Erasmus Medical Centre and Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw), the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (RIDE), the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Ministry for Health, Welfare, and Sports, the European Commission (DG XII), and the Municipality of Rotterdam. The work described here is funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program as part of the CoSTREAM project (Common mechanisms and pathways in Stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, http://www.costream.eu , grant 667375) and by the Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw) as part of the projects Memorabel (Dementia research and innovation program - grant 733050303) and PERADES (Defining Genetic, Polygenic and Environmental Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease using multiple powerful cohorts, focused Epigenetics and Stem cell metabolomics – grant 733051021). The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the Editor Xavier Sanchez‐Vila, the associate editor, Aldo Fiori, and four anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. This research was supported by Gansu Province Science and Technology Foundation for Youths (21JR7RA520) and the Visiting Researcher Fund Program of State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science (2020NSG03). The first author also acknowledges the support by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Lanzhou University (lzujbky‐2021011). The fourth author acknowledges the support by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFC1523400). The fifth author acknowledges the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2040213). This numerical calculations in this work was supported by the Supercomputing Center of Lanzhou University.
Publisher Copyright:
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