{"doi":"10.1016/j.osep.2024.07.005","title":"Modifiable Health and Lifestyle Factors Predict Fluid Ability in Cognitively Normal Older Adults","abstract":"Objectives To determine the extent that modifiable risk factors for dementia also predict cognitive function in older adults without dementia. Design Cross-sectional observational study with regression and mediation analyses. Setting Community-dwelling individuals in the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study (DLBS) were assessed in a research laboratory. Participants Cognitively normal older adults ( N = 245) ages 50–89 were examined. Measurements Eight prominent factors were examined: alcohol consumption, body mass index (BMI), depressive symptoms, education, physical activity, pulse pressure, cigarette smoking, and social activity. Cognitive activity was examined in a subsequent model. Fluid ability, a measure of general cognition, was the outcome measure. Results The eight modifiable factors were strongly related to individual differences in fluid ability, collectively accounting for 15.5% of the variance. In the primary model, education, social activity, BMI, smoking, and depressive symptoms were significant predictors. In a subsequent model, cognitive activity emerged as the strongest predictor of fluid ability. Additionally, mediation analysis suggested that much of the effects of education and social activity on general cognition were due to increased engagement in cognitive activities. Conclusions These results suggest that several prominent dementia risk factors also play a role in predicting individual differences in cognitively normal older adults' fluid intelligence. Importantly, this study identifies the factors which exhibit particularly robust associations with cognition. These findings provide further evidence that modifiable lifestyle and health factors are likely supportive of cognition in later life, suggesting that individuals may be able to improve their cognitive outcomes through adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors.","journal":"The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry Open Science Education and Practice","year":2024,"id":473799,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.6344,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1310094,"name":"Carson D. Katen","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1310095,"name":"S Monier","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":55005,"name":"Denise C. Park","orcid":"0000-0003-2050-3513","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":878635,"name":"Joseph P. Hennessee","orcid":"0000-0002-1189-0649","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":37,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:06:04.967429Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}