Dementia Risk to Double: Should That Be Troubling to Cyclists?

By Kevin Kolodziejski 

Before answering the question posed in the title, allow me to provide insight into another mental state that’s troubling whether you pedal or not. It’s that change that occurs when a bit of bad news does more than momentarily bother you, but seemingly takes hold of you and upsets your equanimity to such a degree that it saps you of all your positivity. And transforms you, albeit temporarily, into the absolute antithesis of Mr. Rogers.

I’m here to say you shouldn’t blame yourself for this. Nor should you blame me for next sharing what even the aforesaid Fred might see as a less than a beautiful day in his neighborhood. You’ll learn why neither of us are culpable as we go.

For now though, all you need to know is this deep-dyed downer from a study published in the January 2025 issue of Nature Medicine. That if you live past the age of 55, your chance of developing dementia during your lifetime is about 42 percent.

Don’t fight the bad news. Let the negativity flow. Allow it to enter your brain and take control.  For that surrender is not you at your worst, but Darwinism at its finest, and is summed up in one of Pearl Jam’s catchiest hooks.

‘It’s Evolution, Baby’

For as we’ve evolved, something else has too, negativity bias. Which is defined in a paper about the phenomenon in the May 2013 issue of Psychological Bulletin as the “propensity to attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information.”

Such a tendency was an absolute necessity for cavemen since the negatives they faced were often a matter of life or death. Those lacking negativity bias tended not to live too long. Those who had it had a greater likelihood of procreating and passing the trait along.

That’s why you’re really not at fault for generating more negative thoughts than positive ones or for having more of a reaction to negative news than positive news. As well as why Eddie Vedder’s lyrics — “It’s herd behavior/It’s evolution, baby” — are spot-on.

And while evolution may not be directly linked to the increased risk of developing dementia, it makes sense to employ the negativity bias it’s produced to keep the disease from afflicting you. That’s because of something even Mr. Rogers would admit is true.

Being Negative Beats Having Dementia

If you develop one or more of the most prevalent types — Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body type, vascular, or frontotemporal dementia — it continues to progress, and your ability to communicate, concentrate, remember, and reason continue to regress. Eventually, you need a caregiver’s help. Though proper intervention can delay what’s almost always an expedited demise, there is no cure for any of the aforementioned kinds.

So go ahead, obsess upon all that. Feel the negativity flow and then harness its power. For negativity is more powerful than you may know.

Negativity Can Be More Motivational Than Positivity

According to a paper published in a 2013 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, when employed to avoid a loss, negative framing produces better results than when positive framing is used “to accrue a gain.” It’s a finding that lends weight to prior research that determined we give more weight to the negative elements of an event than the positive ones. Which is exactly why I, a soon-to-be-64-year-old cyclist who possesses no more muscle mass than a “heavy” professional climber, tap into the power of negativity when I sit on a bench, place two heavy dumbbells atop my thighs, and wonder why in the hell I’m about to lie down to lift them. Sometimes I choose to recall the absolutely brilliant English professor who taught me so much about the language and life — and who lived the last decade of her life as needy and sometimes terrible as the worst two-year-old — and how utterly awful having a last decade like that would be for me and everyone I love.

And guess what?

Before those dumbbells thump upon the floor, I almost always eke out one or two reps more than I was hoping for. So why not follow suit and occasionally motivate — or scare — yourself into doing things to keep you healthy by tapping into the power of negativity? Just be aware that being negative can be mentally draining, intellectually toxic even. That being positive is generally preferable for many of reasons, one of which is that it provides reassurance.

The Dementia Study That Provides Reassurance

A study published in the February 2025 issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine offers a negative response to the question posed in today’s title, which for virtually all cyclists should be really reassuring. It followed over 60,000 United Kingdom adults for 12 years and broke the group into thirds based on the results of a six-minute submaximal exercise test performed on a stationary bicycle and used to gauge cardiorespiratory fitness. It found that those who attained a high enough degree of cardiorespiratory fitness to rank in the upper third of the group lowered their risk of developing dementia by 40 percent when compared to the lower third during the length of study.

On an even more positive note, when the researchers isolated the scores of the participants who ranked in the upper third but also face an elevated risk of dementia based on prior DNA analysis, their risk was still 35 percent lower than those who had no such risk but cardiovascular fitness that ranked in the bottom third.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.