There are a great many reasons to stop skiing. The cost of a lift ticket. The risk to life and limb. Your lack of updated skiwear and your refusal to spend $949 on a jacket.
But there are other, better reasons to stay on your sticks. Fresh air. Adrenaline. The satisfaction of slaying the mountain. The satisfaction of not yet surrendering to the insults of age.
And now this: according to a long-term, large-sample study conducted in Sweden, people who cross-country ski seem to have a lower incidence of depression and vascular dementia.
Researchers in Sweden studied the health records of around 200,000 cross-country skiers who took part in the Vasaloppet, a 90-kilometer cross-country ski race, between 1989 and 2010. They found that the skiers had a 50 percent lower incidence of dementia, depression and chronic anxiety when compared to a similarly sized control group. Again: 50 percent. That’s a big number, and it gives some confidence that even if there were the occasional glitches in the research model or someone lied, there is probably a significant difference between the two groups.
The skiers also had a lower incidence of Parkinson’s disease but, oddly, the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease wasn’t lower among the skiers.
The authors don’t claim to know why they got the results they did.
One probably naïve observation: these were not weekend alpine skiers who were fit enough to take a couple of easy glides down a green run and head for the bar at 11:15. These were cross-country skiers who trained well enough to sign up for a 90-kilometer (56-mile) race. They were beasts of training and discipline. Nothing that applies to them applies to you or me.
That said, any physical activity is better than none. So strap on those skis. It’s still fun.
Image: Ernst Alm, winner of Vasaloppet in Mora, Sweden, 1922, via Wikimedia Commons
