Physical Activity and Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

The association between physical activity and Alzheimer’s disease is of major interest. We performed a Medline search for cohort studies. Studies on cognitive decline, case-controls, or studies without clear descriptions and duplicate publications were excluded. Overall, we included 6 cohorts of high quality (most studies were performed in elderly patients) in the overall analysis, which investigated 10,380 participants in total with 271 cases of Alzheimer’s disease. The calculated pooled odds ratio of the dichotomized endpoint physical activity Yes or High vs. No or Low and Alzheimer’s disease was 0.59 (0.50–0.69). Our results suggest that physical activity is inversely associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Future studies should address the impact of midlife physical activity on development of Alzheimer’s disease in later life.