Cardio Boosts Memory and Thinking
CBN.com - Do you keep telling yourself you will go to the gym later, when you have more time? That you will sacrifice your fitness to focus just on your work? That is taking two chances, one on your health and one on your work.
Of course work is important. But the problem is, you lose out on your fitness, because not exercising is like skipping routine maintenance on your car.
And what about the brain?
More and more research is telling us the importance of staying active, for the brain.
A new study finds that young adults who run or participate in other cardio fitness activities may preserve their memory and thinking skills in middle age.
Middle age was defined as ages 43 to 55.
“Many studies show the benefits to the brain of good heart health,” said study author David R. Jacobs, Jr, PhD, with the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. “This is one more important study that should remind young adults of the brain health benefits of cardio fitness activities such as running, swimming, biking or cardio fitness classes.”
Cardiorespiratory fitness is a measure of how well your body transports oxygen to your muscles, and how well your muscles are able to absorb the oxygen during exercise.
People who had smaller decreases in their time completed on the treadmill test 20 years later were more likely to perform better on the executive function test than those who had bigger decreases.
“These changes were significant, and while they may be modest, they were larger than the effect from one year of aging,” Jacobs said.
“Other studies in older individuals have shown that these tests are among the strongest predictors of developing dementia in the future. One study showed that every additional word remembered on the memory test was associated with an 18-percent decrease in the risk of developing dementia after 10 years,” he added.
Reference:
“Cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function in middle age,” Na Zhu, David R. Jacobs Jr, Pamela J. Schreiner, Kristine Yaffe, Nick Bryan, Lenore J. Launer, Rachel A. Whitmer, Stephen Sidney, Ellen Demerath, William Thomas, Claude Bouchard, Ka He, Jared Reis, Barbara Sternfeld, Neurology online April 2, 2014.
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Dr. Leo Galland is a board-certified internist who received his education at Harvard University and the New York University School of Medicine. He has held faculty positions at New York University, Rockefeller University, the State University of New York, and the University of Connecticut. Interviews with Dr. Galland and articles about his work have been featured in Newsweek, Reader's Digest, Self, Bazaar, Men's Fitness, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications. He has written three highly acclaimed popular books, The Fat Resistance Diet, Power Healing, and Superimmunity for Kids.
Jonathan Galland is a health writer for newspapers, magazines, and major news Web sites. He is frequently interviewed as a weight loss and health expert on the radio and has appeared on Martha Stewart Living Radio. His work has been featured on the cover of Fitness, Glamour, and Women's World and in publications such as The Washington Post, Body and Soul, Self, and The Wall Street Journal. Jonathan is co-author of The Fat Resistance Diet, with his father Leo Galland, M.D. Their book has been translated and published in Italy as La Dieta Galland and in Japan as Dr. Galland’s Metabolic Diet.
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