There’s an old adage that many a personal trainer loves to recite: ‘Use it or lose it’. And few would disagree that they are wise words. Decades of research tells us that regular use of our various muscles keeps them stronger for longer. Evidence shows that to be true for brain health, too. Use those neurons (through crosswords or other types of puzzles) or lose them.
Now, there’s new evidence of a link between a particular regime of physical exercise and brain health for older people. A longitudinal study completed at the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) shows that upping your exercise intensity gives your brain the best chance of maintaining high functionality.
The evidence from the study provides a pretty clear message: a little bit of pain may save your brain.
Exercise and brain health
Emeritus Professor Perry Bartlett and Dr Daniel Blackmore from QBI (part of the University of Queensland) set out to find which level of exercise would likely have significant beneficial longer-term effects on brain functions. This included functions such as hippocampal-based learning and memory, which helps with your spatial memory, verbal memory and learning of conceptual information.
The pair had volunteers between 65 and 85 years of age perform exercises before undergoing brain scans. They based their trials on three levels of exercise intensity, defined as follows:
- Low – predominantly motor function, balance and stretching
- Medium – brisk walking on a treadmill
- High – four cycles running on a treadmill at near maximum exertion
They found that the third level – high intensity interval exercise – led to lasting cognitive improvement. In fact, cognitive improvement derived through high intensity exercise was retained for up to five years.
Why does it work?
Prof. Bartlett said pre-trial work had provided the clues to the mechanism at play in terms of brain health. “In earlier pre-clinical work, we discovered exercise can activate stem cells,” he said. Moreover, this served to “increase the production of neurons in the hippocampus, improving cognition”, he said.
“In this study, a large cohort of healthy 65–85-year-old volunteers joined a six-month exercise program, did biomarker and cognition testing and had high-resolution brain scans.” The results showed long-term benefits, even for those who ceased high intensity exercise at the conclusion of the trial.
“We followed up with them five years after the program and incredibly they still had improved cognition, Prof. Bartlett explained. It remained so, “even if they hadn’t kept up with the exercises”.
What does this brain health breakthrough mean for you and me?
The takeaway for ordinary older Australians is that a bit of high intensity exercise could provide significant long-term benefits. As our population ages, the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia is rising.
While much work has been done in this area in terms of prevention through medical intervention, this study demonstrates that we can play an important part ourselves.
High intensity exercise such as running can form an important part of that. This of course depends on other individual health factors. So, before you put on your sneakers and sprint out the door, a trip to your GP might be a good idea.
Then, if your GP does give you the go-ahead, regular runs could give you many more years of brain health.
Do you do much high intensity exercise? Would you be willing to do more for the sake of your brain health? Let us know via the comments section below.
Also read: How ‘dendritic spines’ may prevent dementia
Health disclaimer: This article contains general information about health issues and is not advice. For health advice, consult your medical practitioner.
