Associations between sporting physical activity and cognition in mid and later-life: Evidence from two cohorts

Abstract

Evidence has linked sporting leisure time physical activity (sporting-LTPA) to healthy cognition throughout adulthood. This may be due to the physiological effects of physical activity (PA), or to other, psychosocial facets of sport. We examined associations between sporting-LTPA and cognition while adjusting for device-measured PA volume devoid of context, both in midlife (N = 4041) participants from the 1970 British Cohort Study and later-life (N = 957) participants from the British Regional Heart Study. Independent of device-measured PA, we identified positive associations between sporting-LTPA and cognition. Sports with team/partner elements were strongly positively associated with cognition, suggesting LTPA context may be critical to this relationship.