Physical activity and subclinical MRI cerebral infarcts: the ARIC Study

We hypothesized that physical activity (PA), which is often associated with reduced risk of ischemic stroke, may also be associated with reduced risk of subclinical cerebral infarcts.

We studied the cross-sectional association between PA and subclinical cerebral infarcts among African-Americans in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study.

PA self-reported at baseline and images from cerebral MRI examination obtained 6 years later were evaluated for presence and location of subclinical infarcts > or = 3 mm in size. After exclusions, 944 participants were eligible for study.

The results suggested an inverse relationship between odds of having a subclinical cerebral infarct and level of PA on several measures, although the multivariable adjusted odds ratios (OR) were statistically significant only for the sport score. A 1-unit increase in the sport score, indicating more leisure PA, was associated with an adjusted OR for having a subclinical cerebral infarct of 0.62 (0.44-0.87), with a statistically significant monotonic trend across quartiles of the score (P = 0.01). There was no association of work scores with subclinical infarcts.

In African-Americans, sport PA was inversely related to subclinical MRI-detected cerebral infarcts assessed six years later.