Every week, Dr. Paul addresses a specific topic related to health and fitness. Please send in your questions.
Exercise and Dementia
Regular readers of the TOTW will know that I often use the phrase “Exercise is medicine”. It never ceases to amaze me about the number of people who discover, through properly administered regular exercise, that a more physically active body (lifestyle?) is a healthier body—on a variety of levels. I have even written before about the suspected relationship between exercise and brain function. Some recent evidence seems to point in that very direction. In the last couple of years, the “link” between brain function and exercise adherence has become stronger and stronger. The reason for the “link”, at least according to scientists that do this sort of research, is ‘theoretical” but the following example of research in this field may serve to show the obvious—at least to me.
A couple of years ago, the revered British medical journal known as the Lancet, published the results of a study in Sweden involving nearly 1,500 participants and the possible link between exercise and brain function starting in “middle-age”. Although the results were seen as groundbreaking—they were not a surprise to me. Here’s the scoop! Men in their forties and fifties were surveyed (based on the results of many previous studies) and ranked with respect to their level of regular exercise (i.e. the number of times per week that they were involved in some sort of moderately vigorous exercise such as walking and cycling). After a period of a little over 20 years, the men were again tested for dementia and the brain disease known as Alzheimer’s. The kicker to this study was that the men were also tested to see if they had the gene that is thought to give one a greater chance of acquiring Alzheimer’s.
The results were, to me, predictable but the researchers were apparently astonished to find that those who exercised at least twice per week when first tested and surveyed for activity level were far LESS likely to suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease when tested in later years (in their sixties and seventies)—and this included the test subjects known to have the Alzheimer’s Disease gene (apoE4). The connection was also not necessarily related to the INTENSITY of the exercise chosen. It was simply related to participation in SOME form of regular exercise as a part on one’s lifestyle. Hmmmmm! How could this be? I wonder what happened?
Could it be that regular exercise increases blood flow to the brain? Could it be that since 80% of the oxygen used by the body is used by the brain be at all related to the health of the brain? Could the delivery of nutrients to the brain by the blood be a factor? Could the more efficient elimination of the waste products of brain metabolism be enhanced by regular bouts of exercise? Is the performance of the central nervous system improved by increased blood flow? The researchers could only “theorize’. But I won’t! Of course exercise was the common factor in improved brain function even with age. As Homer Simpson would say—“Doh!”
I’m Dr. Paul Kennedy and that’s the “Be Fit, Stay Fit” Topic of the Week. Good luck with YOUR program. I KNOW you can do it!
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