Exercise

How physical exercise and fitness improves your brain function

Tai Chi improves blood flow in young adults

A year-long study involving young adults has compared those who engaged in either tai chi or brisk walking or no exercise. Those who practiced tai chi had a significantly higher number of CD 34+ cells compared with those in the other groups. CD 34+ cells are markers for blood stem cells involved in cell self-renewal, differentiation and proliferation. The findings suggest tai chi may prompt vasodilation and increase blood flow.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-05/ctco-ctc052814.php

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Green tea plus exercise may speed up weight loss

Mice given decaffeinated green tea and regular exercise lost weight and improved their health after 16 weeks. Specifically, they reduced body mass by 27% (on average), reduced abdominal fat by 37%; reduced blood glucose level by 17%, plasma insulin level by 65%, and insulin resistance by 65%..

Neither green tea alone, nor exercise alone, produced such significant changes. The amount of green tea was a lot: the equivalent of 8-10 cups a day. Decaffeination may not be important; it was done to keep the effects of caffeine out of the study.

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Obesity linked to inflammation & impaired brain function

A mouse study has found that obese mice had high levels of interleukin 1 in both their blood and their brains, and this was associated with:

  • high levels of inflammation,
  • low levels of a biochemical important to synapse function, and
  • impaired cognitive function.

Moreover, when fat was removed from the obese mice, interleukin levels dropped dramatically, and cognitive performance improved.

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In favor of nature’s benefits for cognition

As many of you will know, I like nature-improves-mind stories. A new twist comes from a small Scottish study, in which participants were fitted up with a mobile EEG monitor that enabled their brainwaves to be recorded as they walked for 25 minutes through one of three different urban settings: an urban shopping street, a path through green space, or a street in a busy commercial district.

04/2013

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Regular exercise throughout life helps keep aging mind sharp

Data from the very large, long-running UK National Child Development Study has revealed that those who exercised at least four times weekly as both a child and an adult performed better on cognitive tests at age 50 than those who exercised two to three times per month or less, and the latter in turn performed better than those who hadn’t regularly exercised at all.

03/2013

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Chewing ability linked to reduced dementia risk

January, 2013

A large study of older adults suggests that being able to bite into a hard food such as an apple puts you in a better state to fight cognitive decline and dementia.

Previous research has pointed to an association between not having teeth and a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia. One reason might have to do with inflammation — inflammation is a well-established risk factor, and at least one study has linked gum disease to a higher dementia risk. Or it might have to do with the simple mechanical act of chewing, reducing blood flow to the brain. A new study has directly investigated chewing ability in older adults.

The Swedish study, involving 557 older adults (77+), found that those with multiple tooth loss, and those who had difficulty chewing hard food such as apples, had a significantly higher risk of developing cognitive impairments (cognitive status was measured using the MMSE). However, when adjusted for sex, age, and education, tooth loss was no longer significant, but chewing difficulties remained significant.

In other words, what had caused the tooth loss didn’t matter. The important thing was to maintain chewing ability, whether with your own natural teeth or dentures.

This idea that the physical act of chewing might affect your cognitive function (on a regular basis; I don’t think anyone is suggesting that you’re brighter when you chew!) is an intriguing and unexpected one. It does, however, give even more emphasis to the importance of physical exercise, which is a much better way of increasing blood flow to the brain.

The finding also reminds us that there are many things going on in the brain that may deteriorate with age and thus lead to cognitive decline and even dementia.

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Exercise may be best way to protect against brain shrinkage

November, 2012
  • A large study of older adults shows that physical exercise is associated with less brain atrophy and fewer white matter lesions. A small study shows that frail seniors benefit equally from exercise.

A study using data from the Lothian Birth Cohort (people born in Scotland in 1936) has analyzed brain scans of 638 participants when they were 73 years old. Comparing this data with participants’ earlier reports of their exercise and leisure activities at age 70, it was found that those who reported higher levels of regular physical activity showed significantly less brain atrophy than those who did minimal exercise. Participation in social and mentally stimulating activities, on the other hand, wasn’t associated with differences in brain atrophy.

Regular physical exercise was also associated with fewer white matter lesions. While leisure activity was also associated with healthier white matter, this was not significant after factors such as age, social class, and health status were taken into account.

Unfortunately, this study is reported in a journal to which I don’t have access. I would love to have more details about the leisure activities data and the brain scans. However, although the failure to find a positive effect of stimulating activities is disappointing, it’s worth noting another recent study, that produced two relevant findings. First, men with high levels of cognitive activity showed a significant reduction in white matter lesions, while women did not. Women with high levels of cognitive activity, on the other hand, showed less overall brain atrophy — but men did not.

Secondly, both genders showed less atrophy in a particular region of the prefrontal cortex, but there was no effect on the hippocampus — the natural place to look for effects (and the region where physical exercise is known to have positive effects).

In other words, the positive effects of cognitive activity on the brain might be quite different from the positive effects of physical exercise.

The findings do, of course, add to the now-compelling evidence for the benefits of regular physical activity in fighting cognitive decline.

It’s good news, then, that a small study has found that even frail seniors can derive significant benefits from exercise.

The study involved 83 older adults (61-89), some of whom were considered frail. Forty-three took part in group exercises (3 times a week for 12 weeks), while 40 were wait-listed controls. Participants were assessed for physical capacity, quality of life and cognitive health a week before the program began, and at the end.

Those who took part in the exercise program significantly improved their physical capacity, cognitive performance, and quality of life. These benefits were equivalent among frail and non-frail participants.

Frailty is associated with a higher risk of falls, hospitalizations, cognitive decline and psychological distress, and, of course, increases with age. In the U.S, it’s estimated that 7% of seniors aged 65 to 74, 18% of those aged 75 to 84, and 37% of seniors over the age of 85 are frail.

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Why metabolic syndrome is linked to cognitive decline?

October, 2012

Preliminary results for a small study indicate metabolic syndrome is linked to significantly reduced blood flow in the brain, perhaps explaining its link to cognitive impairment.

I’ve reported before on the growing evidence that metabolic syndrome in middle and old age is linked to greater risk of cognitive impairment in old age and faster decline. A new study shows at least part of the reason.

The study involved 71 middle-aged people recruited from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention (WRAP), of whom 29 met the criteria for metabolic syndrome (multiple cardiovascular and diabetes risk factors including abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol).

Those with metabolic syndrome averaged 15% less blood flow to the brain than those without the syndrome.

One tried and true method of increasing blood flow to the brain is of course through exercise.

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The study was presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Vancouver, Canada by Barbara Bendlin.

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Tai Chi improves cognition and brain size in older adults

August, 2012

A comparison of the effects of regular sessions of tai chi, walking, and social discussion, has found tai chi was associated with the biggest gains in brain volume and improved cognition.

The study involved 120 healthy older adults (60-79) from Shanghai, who were randomly assigned to one of four groups: one that participated in three sessions of tai chi every week for 40 weeks; another that instead had ‘social interaction’ sessions (‘lively discussions’); another in which participants engaged in walking around a track; and a non-intervention group included as a control. Brain scans were taken before and after the 40-week intervention, and cognitive testing took place at 20 weeks as well as these times.

Compared to those who received no intervention, both those who participated in tai chi, and those who participated in the social sessions, showed significant increases in brain volume and on some cognitive measures. However, the tai chi group showed improvement on more cognitive tests than the social group (on the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale, the Trailmaking Tests, delayed recognition on the Auditory Verbal Learning Test, and verbal fluency for animals vs verbal fluency and positive trends only on Trails A and the Auditory test).

Surprisingly, there were no such significant effects from the walking intervention, which involved 30 minutes of brisk walking around a 400m circular track, sandwiched by 10 minutes of warm-up and 10 minutes cool-down exercises. This took place in the same park as the tai chi sessions (which similarly included 20 minutes of warm-up exercises, 20 minutes of tai chi, and 10 minutes of cool-down exercises).

This finding is inconsistent with other research, but the answer seems to lie in individual differences — specifically, speed of walking. Faster walkers showed significantly better performance on the Stroop test, and on delayed recall and recognition on the Auditory Verbal Learning Test. It should be noted that, unlike some studies in which participants were encouraged to reach heart-rate targets, participants in this study were simply told to walk at their own speed. This finding, then, would seem to support the view that brisk walking is needed to reap good health and cognitive benefits (which shouldn’t put anyone off — anything is better than nothing! and speed is likely to come with practice, if that’s your aim).

It should also be noted that this population has generally high rates of walking. It is likely, then, that the additional walking in these sessions did not add a great deal to their existing behavior.

There is a caveat to the strongly positive effects of tai chi: this group showed lower cognitive performance at baseline. This was because the group randomly received more individuals with very low scores (8 compared with 5 in the other groups).

The study is, of course, quite a small one, and a larger study is required to confirm these results.

One final note: the relative differences in enjoyment were not explicitly investigated, but the researchers did note that the social group, who initially were given topics to discuss in their hour-long sessions, then decided to select and organize their own discussions, and have continued to do so for two years following the end of the study. It would have been nice if the researchers had re-tested participants at that point.

Reference: 

Mortimer, J.A. et al. 2012. Changes in Brain Volume and Cognition in a Randomized Trial of Exercise and Social Interaction in a Community-Based Sample of Non-Demented Chinese Elders. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 30 (4), 757-766.
Full text available at http://health.usf.edu/nocms/publicaffairs/now/pdfs/JAD_Mortimer_30%28201...

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