Stability of Lifestyle Behavior – The Answer to Successful Cognitive Aging? A Comparison of Nuns, Monks, Master Athletes and Non-active Older Adults

Abstract

Background: Epidemiological studies of the effect of physical activity on cognition demonstrated an inverse relationship between physical activity and cognitive decline. However, such health behaviors are hardly invariable over time. The relative homogeneity of the adult lifestyle of nuns/monks as well as master athletes reduces the likelihood of confounding due to differences in their participation in regular life-long physical activities. The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in cognitive functions between nuns/monks, master athletes and sedentary, but otherwise healthy older adults. Additionally, we examined associations between demographic variables (education, sex, age), BMI, physical activity, exercise, and fitness and cognitive performance. Methods: We recruited three groups of healthy participants without cognitive deficits: (1) Nuns/Monks ( n = 20; age 77.5 ± 5.56; 5 M, 15 W), (2) Master Athletes ( n = 20; age 76.5 ± 5.33; 12 M, 8 W), and (3) Sedentary ( n = 20; 76.4 ± 5.96, 6 M, 14 W). Cognitive performance (working memory, inhibition) was measured with a n-back task and a flanker task, participation in physical activities with the “German-PAQ-50+,” and physical fitness with the 30s chair stand and arm curl test. Results: As predicted, ANOVA comparing groups revealed the three groups differed in cognition, physical activity, and physical fitness with inactive older adults performing lower on all tests than the other two groups. Hierarchical regression analyses showed a positive influence of lifestyle stability on accuracy and reaction time for working memory and inhibitory performance. The highest correlation coefficients for fitness and cognitive performance emerged for the group of nuns and monks. Conclusion: Life-long stability of an active lifestyle may confer benefits to some aspects of working memory, attention, and inhibitory control. Longitudinal studies are recommended to further examine the causal relationship of lifestyle stability and cognitive function in such specific cohorts.

Hot and Cool Executive Function in Elite- and Amateur- Adolescent Athletes From Open and Closed Skills Sports

“…With regard to the current state of research on EF in sports, studies focused in particular on athletes of open-skill sports such as table tennis (Elferink-Gemser et al, 2018), ice hockey, rugby (Faubert, 2013), track-and-field (Schott and Krull, 2019), and soccer (Vestberg et al, 2012(Vestberg et al, , 2017Verburgh et al, 2014Verburgh et al, , 2016Huijgen et al, 2015) with the focus on the comparison of Cool EF in elite and sub-elite (amateur) athletes. Although " [.…”

“…Miyake et al (2000) suggest that working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility are three central aspects of EF. Based on this, we decided to assess Cool EF with a n-back task (Yun et al, 2010), a modified Flanker-task (Schott and Krull, 2019), the Trail-Making-Test (Reitan, 1958), and the Trail-Walking-Test (Schott, 2015). Two established selfreport measures of impulsivity, the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale (Whiteside and Lynam, 2001) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-15;Patton et al, 1995) were also administered.…”

“…Inhibition was assessed by performance during a modified flanker task (Eriksen and Eriksen, 1974;Schott and Krull, 2019). The stimuli were presented using E-Prime software (Psychology Software Tools, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, United States) on a 17-in computer monitor.…”

Effect of physical exercise and medication on enhancing cognitive function in older adults with vascular risk

“…An explanation might be the inclusion of older individuals who were not particularly fond of exercise or tended to exercise irregularly. The problem of heterogeneity in exercise frequency and intensity is often identified in observational studies 22 . However, the present findings suggested that any forms of spontaneous exercise in the neighborhood without coaching might also provide a cognitive benefit to older adults with vascular risk.…”

Current Insights in the Age-related Decline in Sports Performance of the Older Athlete

“…One factor that is associated with better general fitness and cognitive function and is suggested to flatten the physical performance decline curve is regular physical activity [8][9][10]. This physical activity does not necessarily need to be a competitive sport.…”