Exercise makes your brain grow

Senior moments are one of those standing jokes - but serious nevertheless. The good news from research by Kirk Erickson and Arthur Kramer (both medical doctors) is that exercise can help the brain grow (even in those of us who are getting "on" in years).


What happens to the inside of the brain as things start to wear ?

The take away points from this research:

• It's never too late to start exercising. Aerobic exercise will reverse mental decline. In many cases even if one is into the early stages of Alzheimer's, hard(ish) aerobic exercise will reverse decline (at least for a few years and maybe longer).
• Aerobic exercise (if it's hard enough) can increase the volume of white and grey matter in the brain.
• This good news extends to the 'Executive control functions' of the brain such as working memory, ease of change from one task to another, task co-ordination, planning, knowing and working towards goals.
• Muscle toning and stretching type of exercises, as useful as these might be, do not improve brain function.
• Higher fitness levels going into old age is correlated with less mental decline later. So workout hard while still middle age part of life.
• Hormone replacement for women is not well thought of currently but it is associated with better brain function. However exercise improvements to brain function are achieved even if a women is on hormone therapy.

So what is the exercise recipe to protect and improve brain function ?

• 6 days a week
• 30 minutes a day
• if you miss a day then make up the time with 60 minutes of exercise
• aerobic exercise has to be hard enough to make you breathless (if you are new to exercise then have your doctor check if your heart can take this)
• walking is a good aerobic exercise but stride it out - uphill is good
  
• 6 months on this exercise program should be enough to make your brain bigger and more productive.

What if you are trying to lose weight, so you are reducing the calories while increasing the exercise. The aerobic exercise can expand your brain but be careful about exactly which diet you go onto.

Holly Taylor, a professor at Tufts, has discovered that very low carb diets, like Atkins, reduce cognitive brain functions. She published her work in Appetite and said "The popular low-carb, no carb diets have the strongest potential for negative impact on thinking and cognition. The brain needs glucose for energy and diets low in carbohydrates can be detrimental to learning, memory and thinking." The longer one is on a low or no-carb diet the more brain function goes down but starts to reverse as soon as carbs are re-introduced to one's diet.




This clip from CBS morning show is worth listening to.