The team measured the cognitive function of older adults who engaged in regular strength training and compared it to those who didn’t exercise at all. After six months, they found that those who lifted weights regularly showed improvement in their verbal episodic memory and the strength of neurons and white matter – the part of the brain responsible for transmitting information between different brain regions, which is often affected by dementia.

Perhaps most excitingly, several of the participants who were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment beforehand no longer showed signs after taking part in the strength programme.

While this study definitely has limitations – it had a small sample size of just 44 adults and only looked at the impact of strength training on older adults – it’s a powerful indicator of the potential strength training has to help us look after our brain health. And it’s not the first study to do this: greater muscle strength has long been linked to a lower risk of dementia and better brain health, with a 2019 review of pre-existing research finding that resistance training can lead to “substantial” functional brain changes, especially in the frontal lobe.

Brain health: can regular strength training protect us from dementia? New research suggests so