Being in good physical shape may help preserve people's thinking and memory skills, suggests a new study. Researchers made this discovery by mapping participants' physical fitness against the number of errors they made on a range of cognitive tests over time.

For the new study, 1,400 men and women were asked to walk, jog or run on a treadmill until they were out of breath. A machine measured the amount of oxygen participants breathed. Generally, the more oxygen your lungs are able to use, the healthier you are, Newsmax Health reports.

They found, for instance, that 80-year-olds who were at one point approximately twice as fit as their peers made about 25 percent fewer errors on a test of memory and concentration.