A recent study revealed that older adults who maintain a walking speed higher than their peers are about half as likely to experience cognitive decline compared to those who walk at a slower pace. However, researchers emphasized that these findings do not mean that increasing walking speed itself prevents dementia, but rather may reflect better brain health.

Walking depends on complex coordination between the brain, nervous system, and muscles.

The research team followed adults in their 80s and classified participants into two groups: "super-agers" and "non-super-agers." Then, researchers compared brain health and cognitive performance between the groups using measures including cognitive tests, MRI-based brain structure scans, and post-mortem assessments of dementia-related brain diseases.

The study, published in the journal Neurology, showed that participants with higher walking speed performed better on cognitive function tests, along with more positive indicators of brain health, reinforcing walking speed as an important marker of healthy aging.

The researchers, as reported by Medical News Today, explained that walking depends on complex coordination between the brain, nervous system, and muscles; therefore, maintaining a good walking speed may reflect the efficiency of this system, while slowing gait with age may indicate the onset of changes related to cognitive decline.

The study quoted Joe Verghese, the study author and professor and chair of neurology and aging at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook in New York, as saying: "Walking speed may help identify people at higher risk for cognitive decline, but it does not prove that increasing walking speed prevents dementia."

The study confirmed that the relationship between walking speed and brain health still requires further research to establish its nature, but it adds new evidence linking physical health to brain health, and suggests that any noticeable decline in walking speed among older adults warrants follow-up and medical evaluation.