What Physical Activity Really Does for Dementia Risk

Dementia should scare everyone into more proactive action, it certainly scares us, because brain disease carries a far greater potential for lifelong burden than many other chronic conditions, including heart disease. One of the most practical strategies we have is setting realistic and achievable healthy movement goals, while immediately removing the myths around “fitness” created by the industry, because it does not take much movement to generate meaningful health benefits. This perspective is reinforced by evidence showing that higher levels of physical activity in both midlife and late life are associated with substantially lower risk of all-cause and Alzheimer’s dementia, with the most active groups experiencing roughly 40% lower dementia risk over long-term follow-up, underscoring how modest, sustainable movement can play a powerful role in dementia prevention (Marino et al., 2025).

Marino, F. R., Lyu, C., Li, Y., Liu, T., Au, R., & Hwang, P. H. (2025). Physical activity over the adult life course and risk of dementia in the Framingham Heart Study. JAMA Network Open, 8(11), e2544439. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.44439