Physical activity and memory complaints in middle-age Americans: results from the MIDUS study

Work-related physical activity (PA; WRPA), household PA (HPA), and leisure-time PA(LTPA) are the 3 important PA domains for most people, but their relationships with cognition functions have not been thoroughly examined, especially the subjective memory complaints (SMCs). We used a data set from the 2005 midlife development in the United States (MIDUS) survey for community-dwelling adults aged 35 to 64 years (mean age = 51.01) to examine the relationship between these 3 PA domains (and 3 levels under the domains) with SMCs (N = 1044). The moderate levels of HPA and LTPA are significantly but oppositely linked to SMCs, with the adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals of .864 and .764-.978 for HPA and 1.130 and 1.010-1.264 for LTPA, respectively. Neither vigorous or low PA level nor domains of WRPA link to SMCs. The interaction terms were not found to be associated with sex and age. Future works and limitations were also discussed.