"There are a number of ways to improve hearing, through hearing aids and surgery, for example," Ray Hull, a professor in communication sciences and disorders at Wichita State, said.
"But for central nervous system processing of what we hear, we need a central nervous system that's working well, and improved cardiovascular health appears to be one way that can happen.
"One of the reasons the processing of what people hear tends to decline with advancing age is that they become less and less active as they get older," he stated.
Improving cardiovascular health appears to turn back our biological clock.
And the good news is that it doesn't seem to matter at what age we begin just that we start having a more active lifestyle sooner rather than later, Hull said.
"One of the most important things that we can do to prevent an aging central nervous system and our ability to understand and process what we hear is to maintain an active lifestyle - aerobics, swimming, lifting weights and walking," he said.
The study was published in the June 2010 edition of the American Journal of Audiology.