Aerobic Exercise Boosted Thinking Skills Most in Postmenopausal Women

The evidence comes from a randomized controlled trial, which is the strongest design for testing an intervention. But this paper is a post hoc, or secondary, analysis. The researchers looked at menopause after the original trial was done. The analysis included 93 cognitively healthy women aged 20 to 67. About 43% were postmenopausal.

Each woman was assigned to one of two programs, four days a week for six months. One was aerobic exercise. The other was stretching and toning, which served as the comparison. Every participant had below-average fitness at the start. Postmenopausal women were not taking estrogen hormone replacement therapy.

The team tested thinking skills at the start, at three months and at six months. They focused on executive functions and processing speed. Executive functions are the mental skills used for planning, focus and self-control. Processing speed is how quickly the brain handles information.

Menopausal status changed the result. A statistical test of whether the effect of exercise differed by group and menopause status was significant at three months (β = -0.89, p = 0.001) and at six months (β = -0.67, p = 0.016). Postmenopausal women in the aerobic group improved more in executive functions than postmenopausal women in the stretching group. They also improved more than premenopausal women. The models accounted for age, education and baseline thinking scores.

Seventy-six of the 93 women, or 81.7%, finished the program. The paper does not report the exact test scores in the portion available to us, so the size of the gain in everyday terms is not clear here.

Why might this matter? The authors note that women have a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease than men. They also note that postmenopausal women are a group at higher risk for dementia. Past research suggests women's exercise tends to fall around menopause. Yet the authors say menopause is often overlooked in exercise research, and few trials have looked at its effect on the brain benefits of exercise.

The study has limits. It is a secondary analysis, so it was not designed to answer this question. The women were healthy, and all had below-average fitness for their age group at the start. The results may not apply to women with health conditions or to women who already exercise. The study also cannot say why menopause made a difference. Age is closely tied to menopause, and the authors point out that older adults may simply have more room to improve. The authors also explored estradiol, a form of estrogen, as a secondary aim, but this article does not report those results.

The authors conclude that aerobic exercise improves thinking, with pronounced executive function benefits in postmenopausal women. They say the findings support aerobic exercise as a relevant strategy for women's brain health and may inform future trials aimed at women. They do not claim it prevents dementia.

What to watch next

Trials designed from the start to test aerobic exercise in women by menopause stage.

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