{"doi":"10.1038/s44220-026-00599-4","title":"Cardiorespiratory fitness and risk of mental disorders and dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis","abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is a strong indicator of overall physical health, but its relevance for mental and neurocognitive health across the life course remains unclear. Here we synthesize evidence from cohort studies examining the associations between CRF and the risk of mental and neurocognitive disorders across all age groups in the general population. Twenty-seven studies comprising 4,007,638 individuals were included. Compared with low CRF, high CRF was associated with a reduced risk of depression (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.64; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.56–0.74), all-cause dementia (HR = 0.61; 95% CI: 0.55–0.68) and psychotic disorders (HR = 0.71; 95% CI: 0.65–0.77) in adults. A one metabolic equivalent of task (1 MET; 3.5 ml kg\n                    <jats:sup>−1</jats:sup>\n                     min\n                    <jats:sup>−1</jats:sup>\n                    ) higher level of CRF was associated with lower risks of depression (HR = 0.95; 95% CI: 0.92–0.98) and all-cause dementia (HR = 0.81; 95% CI: 0.67–0.98). Overall certainty of evidence ranged from very low to moderate. These findings suggest that CRF may be a useful marker for identifying adults at increased risk of depression, dementia and psychotic disorders, highlighting the need for further large-scale longitudinal studies.\n                  </jats:p>","journal":"Nature Mental Health","year":2026,"id":628423,"datarank":0.16479184330021646,"base_score":1.0986122886681096,"endowment":1.0986122886681096,"self_citation_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1118989,"name":"José Francisco López‐Gil","orcid":"0000-0002-7412-7624","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627026,"name":"Eva Rodríguez-Gutiérrez","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627028,"name":"María Eugenia Visier-Alfonso","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627031,"name":"Estela Jiménez-López","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627032,"name":"Irene Sequí-Domínguez","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":24249,"name":"Francisco B. Ortega","orcid":"0000-0003-2001-1121","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627034,"name":"José Castro-Piñero","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1118991,"name":"Arthur Eumann Mesas","orcid":"0000-0002-0088-8607","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627036,"name":"Mairena Sánchez-López","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627037,"name":"Vicente Martínez-Vizcaíno","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627038,"name":"Bruno Bizzozero-Peroni","orcid":"0000-0003-0614-5561","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1627024,"name":"Valentina Díaz-Goñi","orcid":"0000-0002-1724-1893","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Cardiorespiratory fitness and risk of mental disorders and dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis","abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is a strong indicator of overall physical health, but its relevance for mental and neurocognitive health across the life course remains unclear. Here we synthesize evidence from cohort studies examining the associations between CRF and the risk of mental and neurocognitive disorders across all age groups in the general population. Twenty-seven studies comprising 4,007,638 individuals were included. Compared with low CRF, high CRF was associated with a reduced risk of depression (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.64; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.56–0.74), all-cause dementia (HR = 0.61; 95% CI: 0.55–0.68) and psychotic disorders (HR = 0.71; 95% CI: 0.65–0.77) in adults. A one metabolic equivalent of task (1 MET; 3.5 ml kg\n                    <jats:sup>−1</jats:sup>\n                     min\n                    <jats:sup>−1</jats:sup>\n                    ) higher level of CRF was associated with lower risks of depression (HR = 0.95; 95% CI: 0.92–0.98) and all-cause dementia (HR = 0.81; 95% CI: 0.67–0.98). Overall certainty of evidence ranged from very low to moderate. These findings suggest that CRF may be a useful marker for identifying adults at increased risk of depression, dementia and psychotic disorders, highlighting the need for further large-scale longitudinal studies.\n                  </jats:p>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"19767382","pmcid":null,"openalex_id":null,"authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha","grant_id":"2024-UNIVERS-12849","title":null},{"funder_name":"Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha","grant_id":"2022-UNIVERS-11373","title":null},{"funder_name":"Forskningsrådet om Hälsa, Arbetsliv och Välfärd","grant_id":"2023-01125","title":null},{"funder_name":"Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación","grant_id":"POS_EXT_2023 _1_175630","title":null},{"funder_name":"Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness | Agencia Estatal de Investigación","grant_id":"Grant PID2023-148404OB-I00 funded by MICIU/AEI /10.13039/501100011033 and ERDF funds","title":null},{"funder_name":"Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare","grant_id":"unidentified","title":"unidentified"}],"total_grants":6,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[],"oa_status":"hybrid","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-026-00599-4.pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-026-00599-4","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://redi.anii.org.uy/jspui/bitstream/20.500.12381/5621/1/D%c3%adaz%20Go%c3%b1i%20%282026%29%20CRF%20and%20mental%20health.pdf","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://hdl.handle.net/10578/48033","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00599-4","host_type":""},{"url":"https://figshare.com/articles/Cardiorespiratory_fitness_and_risk_of_mental_disorders_and_dementia_a_systematic_review_and_meta-analysis/31839520/1","host_type":""}],"fields_of_study":["03 medical and health sciences","0302 clinical medicine"],"mesh_terms":[],"keywords":["Neurocognitive disorders","Meta-analysis","Dementia","Physical fitness","Cardiorespiratory fitness","Mental disorders"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-05T13:29:26.075819Z","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":[]}