ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Neurocognitive Aging and Behavior
This article is part of the Research TopicBrain Health Across the Lifespan: Nutritional Interventions and Physical Exercise for Healthy AgingView all 6 articles
A 24-Week Multi-Component Exercise Program Improves Cognition and Body Composition in Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Provisionally accepted
Danming Xu1
Wu Xiaochu2
Qing Li1Zhi Wang1Yimin Huang1Yu Zhang1Junjie Cao1Bingxue Li1Yirong Dong1
Yanhao Tu1*- 1Chengdu Sport University, Chengdu, China
- 2West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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Background: This study investigated whether a 24-week, community-based multicomponent exercise intervention (MCEI) can improve body composition and cognitive function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods: In this single-center, parallel-group randomized controlled trial (RCT), 64 community-dwelling adults aged 65–75 years with MCI characterized by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) ≥ 24, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) ≤ 26, Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) = 0.5, low skeletal muscle mass were randomly allocated (1:1) to a MCEI (aerobic, resistance and balance training, 3 × 60 min/week) or to a usual-activity control (UAC) group receiving weekly health education. Primary outcomes were skeletal muscle mass (SMM), fat-mass index (FMI), MMSE and MoCA; secondary outcomes included skeletal muscle index (SMI), basal metabolic rate (BMR), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) and Animal Fluency Test (AFT). Assessments were conducted at baseline and within one week post-intervention by trained, blinded assessors. Intervention effects were examined with a 2 (group) × 2 (time) repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), reporting partial eta-squared (η²) as the effect-size estimate. Results: A significant Group × Time interaction was observed for SMM (p < 0.001, η² = 0.195) and FMI (p = 0.003, η² = 0.153), indicating differential changes between groups; with significant improvements observed only in the MCEI group. SMI showed no significant interaction effect (p = 0.270, η² = 0.021), whereas no significant interactions were found for MMSE, MoCA, or AFT (p ≥ 0.18, η² ≤ 0.03) Conclusion: A 24-week community-based multicomponent exercise program safely increased skeletal muscle mass and reduced fat mass in older adults with MCI, but did not produce measurable improvements on screening-level cognitive measures. Future studies with longer duration, larger samples, and inclusion of cognitive challenges are warranted to clarify exercise–cognition interactions and establish dose–response relationships for both body composition and domain-specific cognition. Trial registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2000035012) (registered July 27, 2020). Keywords: Multicomponent Exercise Intervention (MCEI); Cognitive Function; Body Composition; Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)
Keywords: Body Composition, Cognitive Function, Multicomponent Exercise Intervention (MCEI), Randomized controlled trial (RCT), Skeletal Muscle Mass;
Received: 23 Sep 2025; Accepted: 15 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Xiaochu, Li, Wang, Huang, Zhang, Cao, Li, Dong and Tu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yanhao Tu
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