The health benefits of staying in shape and exercising regularly are no secret. Aside from complications that come with obesity, heart troubles, high blood pressure and a series of other issues can be triggered when someone is out of shape.
Now there is yet another reason to take a jog around the block or go for a brisk walk before work, a study shows exercise keeps you brain sharp.
“Strikingly, this small amount of running was sufficient to confer robust benefits for those that ran over those that did not run,” Ruth Barrientos, of the psychology and neuroscience department. “This is an important finding because those of advanced age are more vulnerable to memory impairments following immune challenges such as bacterial infections or surgery. With baby boomers currently at retirement age, the risk of diminished memory function in this population is of great concern. Thus, effective noninvasive therapies are of substantial clinical value.”
The Dieting Study:
The University of Colorado Boulder looked into exercise in rats and how it effected their memory.
“Our research shows that a small amount of physical exercise by late middle-aged rats profoundly protects against exaggerated inflammation in the brain and long-lasting memory impairments that follow a serious bacterial infection,” said Barrientos.
The reasoning:
Researchers believe exercise improves the cognitive part of the brain, a part that can deteriorate with age.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first dieting study to show that voluntary exercise in rats reduces aging-induced susceptibility to the cognitive impairments that follow a bacterial infection, and the processes thought to underlie these impairments,” Barrientos said.
The next step of this research is to examine the role that stress hormones may play on the elderly.
The dieting study will appear in The Journal of Neuroscience.
