Annals of Human Biology (Nov 2017)

Physical inactivity and cognitive impairment in Korean older adults: gender differences in potential covariates

  • Jinkyung Cho,
  • Youngyun Jin,
  • Inhwan Lee,
  • Haeryun Hong,
  • Donghyun Kim,
  • Soohyun Park,
  • Hyunsik Kang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/03014460.2017.1392604
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 44, no. 8
pp. 729 – 737

Abstract

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Background: Physical inactivity is one major lifestyle risk factor of mild cognitive impairment with ageing. Aim: To investigate whether or not potential covariates modulate the association between physical activity (PA) and cognitive impairment in older adults. Subjects and methods: Data from 10 245 Korean older adults (5817 women) were used. Results: High PA older adults were younger and longer educated and had lower comorbidity and depression than low PA older adults. Compared with low PA men, moderate PA men only had a significantly lower odds-ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) (OR = 0.795, 95% CI = 0.654 ∼ 0.965, p = 0.021) for having cognitive impairment, even after adjusting for measured covariates, which was no longer significant when additionally adjusted for comorbidity (OR = 0.862, 95% CI = 0.707 ∼ 1.051, p = 0.143). Compared with low PA women, moderate and high PA women had significantly lower risks of cognitive impairment (OR = 0.830, 95% CI = 0.712 ∼ 0.969, p = 0.018 and OR = 0.784, 95% CI = 0.651 ∼ 0.943, p = 0.010, respectively), even after adjusting for the measured covariates including comorbidity, which was no longer significant when additionally adjusted for depression (OR = 0.897, 95% CI = 0.776 ∼ 1.049, p = 0.173 and OR = 0.919, 95% CI = 0.761 ∼ 1.111, p = 0.385, respectively). Conclusion: These findings suggest that gender differences in the covariates modulate the relationship between physical activity and cognitive decline in older Korean adults.

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