Doing regular cardiovascular exercises would help improve memorizing and thinking abilities of individual in middle age defined between 43 and 55 years, said researchers. David Jacobs Jr., PhD, from the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis, said the study emphasizes the benefits of running, swimming, biking or cardio fitness classes for brain health in young adults.

Having healthy heart would help efficiently transport oxygen to muscles and other body parts. An extraordinary increase in the number and the ratio of older adults has been reported in United States, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Longer life spans and aging baby boomers are the two key factors which the organization believes are responsible for causing this growth. The latest report by the CDC predicts that the ratio of older adults will comprise around 20% of the US population by 2030. The Healthy Brain Initiative in the Healthy Aging Program was started by the CDC to maintain cognitive health of the aging population in the US in year 2005.

With the help of some cardiovascular tests, researchers have measured the verbal memory, psychomotor speed, a relation between physical movement and thinking skill, and executive function.

Researchers found increase in cognitive performance in patients after every extra minute on the treadmill. They also reported recalling of 0.12 more words during the memory test and correctly replacing of 0.92 more numbers with symbols in the psychomotor speed test for every one extra minute of treadmill test.

The best part is that these factors also hold true for other conditions including diabetes, smoking and high cholesterol. Researchers also found better performance on executive function test in patients with smaller time decreases on the treadmill compared to those with larger time decrease.

Jacobs said that performing physical activities also helps in tuning up mitochondria, responsible for making energy turnaround in the body.