Winston Churchill was an avid runner up until his later life. Neville Chamberlain not so much.
1
I read Dr. John Ratey's book Spark two years ago that explains how exercise benefits brain and neuro-function. This new study corroborates what Ratey wrote. My work requires me to be in front of my computer much of the day so I went out and bought an www.UnSit.com Treadmill Desk. Now I'm moving all day. I typically log in over five miles/day. In fact, I'm walking as I type this post and remember everything ;).
1
The more scientific studies I read the more it seems that exercise, especially walking briskly or running for 30 minutes, three or four times a week improves overall health especially brain health. This includes emotional well-being and stress reduction. Yet there is another factor that proves to me, at least, that hearty exercise is good: why is is that when I finish a 30 minute run, I have forgotten who I was angry at?
2
I a survivor of traumatic brain injury. And I am proud of the fact that I am an active (6 miles a day) power walker. What are the implications here for TBI survivors?
2
Not mentioned: For the sake of your brain, avoid Fox News.
9
While it is a bit discouraging to read the comments here from marathon runners and those doing 50+ miles a week, you don't need to compare yourself to them. That is not what it takes to reap the benefits described in this article.
I am late 50's and slightly overweight, but go out of my way to run about 20-30 minutes at least 3 times per week. I'm slow and probably look ridiculous, but the positive mental effects, for me, anyway, are undeniable. A more positive outlook and new ideas flow much freer when I stick to this routine.
15
One of the joys of being older (I find) is that you don't have to care anymore whether you look ridiculous or not. Run on!
21
This seems a lot more like correlation - not causation. And if any runners commenting here wonder how you got your reputation for being smug and arrogant and self centered, wonder no more.
3
A good article to remind the static, lazy and undisciplined people who are able to exercise but don't!
I’ll try typing even faster and see if what comes out sounds any smarter. Definitive proof is all I ask.
1
Scientist explaining the obvious again. In evolution i find an interesting aspect being the use of tools. As this requires the brain to percieve and analyse the environment with an external perspective. Like to throw a spear, to get it to hit the target, you have to percieve the target in a different space and time to where/when the spear is in the hand - till when the spear is in the target. This is a different mindset to two gorrillas in a tussle of strength. This may have led to the development of more smarts. incidently i think that anotomically, shoulders adapted to upright posture and in conjunction with the smarts to throw (and communication) are the defining characteristics of humans. So through time man moved from beating his fists, to throwing stones, to throwing spears, using swords, to rifles, to computers, to phones. Now we dont use our shoulders at all, everything is at our fingertips. Where to from here?
"Scientist explaining the obvious again(!)" With your superior mind (which was uniquely able to ascertain that these inferior scientists were being fools), please explain how it is "obvious" that, under the influence of physical exercise, new brain cells grow more robustly, to larger sizes and with longer, more numerous physical connections to other brain cells.
I stopped reading when I got to the sentence about the unfortunate, innocent mice trapped in science labs to prove what is basic common sense. For shame.
The use of animal models are an essential component of medical research. Are you for or against continuing medical research?
2
As with the comment above yours, please explain how it is "common sense" that, under the influence of physical exercise, new brain cells grow more robustly, to larger sizes, and with longer, more numerous physical connections to other brain cells. Then, given the extensive agony of Alzheimer's and other human maladies, explain why these mice should not have served this study of our collective well-being; or, propose another way to learn the same information.
Is Hawkings an exception to the rule?
8
But how will this help me not to lose my job to AI?
4
Move more - eat less.
4
For once, I would like to the NYTimes introduce an article like this with a photo of a normal person, not some skinny long-legged athletic woman that we are supposed to look like. I worked out this morning (ice skating). Easy for me to do given I am retired. But others aren't so fortunate; nor do they resemble the lady in the photo. Get real Times.
14
Thank you for this comment! My first thought was similar. How unfortunate that so many of these articles encouraging physical activity (and explaining its benefits) are accompanied by a slender young person running! How many people do you discourage by the visual suggestion that this is what is being proposed?
It's interesting that Donald Trump eschews all forms of exercise, maintaining that he considers exercise to be depleting of "energy". One can't help but wonder the extent to which this plays into his tendencies toward erratic behavior.
14
"(Males were used to avoid accounting for the effects of the female reproductive cycle.)"
Is there any reason to think that the female reproductive cycle should affect the results of the study? If so, then when are we going to learn what the effects are for those of us who have reproductive cycles? If not, then why use only male animals?
6
"Is there any reason to think that the female reproductive cycle should affect the results of the study?"....Yes, and the result of including female animals in the study might well require the use of many more animals in order to obtain a statistically significant result.
So much research, so many studies are only conducted on male subjects. As though male is the standard, the norm. And then results of those studies are generalized to the population as a whole. It really shortchanges women over and over again. Perhaps at some point, a companion study would be done with female subjects or both but that's often not the case. There isn't as much funding for replication in studies as there should be. It really irks me to read these headlines and then find the study was done on 1/2 of the species. AND the photo for the cover of this article appears to be of a WOMAN.
4
Thank you Amanda for pointing this out! I am not a scientist but it seems illogical to conduct a study of all male participants and then generalize the results to everyone. This has been done to the detriment of girls and women. For example, there were studies of moral development by Lawrence Kohlberg that used an all male population to identify stages of development. According to this model, boys and men appeared to attain higher levels of moral development than girls and women. Carol Gilligan questioned this model and showed that the thought processes of girls and women were different rather than inferior. She posited two basic models: an ethic of care most often found in girls and women and an ethic of justice found most often in boys and men. We don't know what differences might be discovered if female subjects were included in studies of how exercise affects the brain. I hope new studies will be more inclusive.
1
When are we going to come out of our shell of speciesism and stop experimenting on animals? I am horrified by this article.
Ms. Reynolds, you clearly feel comfortable at the top of the food chain, if you can type, with no qualms, words like these: "For the experiment, the scientists injected a modified rabies vaccine into the animals, where it entered the nervous system and brain." And then go on to discuss the subsequent methodology without acknowledging that the mice are sentient beings.
And then, to sum all of this up with the NIH study author's quote: “I think it is a very good idea for the sake of the brain to be moving and active.”
Ugh.
Ms. Reynolds, did the treatment of the mice register
9
If someone I loved got a life-threatening disease, and there was a chance to save her using a treatment that was developed with experimentation on mice, I would have no qualms if the doctors used it. I have a feeling most people would feel the same way.
1
Sure, let’s give up on all modern medicine. Maybe we should stop trying to create cancer treatments, vaccines, antibiotics, HIV treatments.... you know all the stuff that saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year (low balling the number here).
Um. this isn't a life- threatening dosease, and it isn't always necessary to go willy-nilly and all-out in animal experimentation in order to learn something. in this case, after all they did, including what seemed to be unnecessarily cruel, they came out with advice we already knew. Get it?
2
This is about as earthshaking and intuitive as "smoking is bad for you". Running activates and flushes the circulatory system; the bad moves on, the organism is strengthened through and through. There's the quick, and oh, there's the dead.
8
Yet we all know of individuals who are physically active and yet die young, and their opposites ( the little old lady who has never jogged, eats very little, and lives to 92).
1
@ Tom Hayden. you must be a Millennial who eschews the study of history or science. The reason that the phrase that "smoking is bad for you" is intuitive to you is because of a lot of difficult science was done to study the effects of smoking. Just as important and even harder to achieve was the public policy efforts that had to fight against bad science and initiatives by the tobacco industry. Both of these efforts took place over the course of decades.
12
Exactly. Advertisements for cigarettes in the 30's and 40's included doctors telling you which cigarette brand was the healthiest! And opera singers talking about the benefits to their voices of smoking.
1
Well, it's cold and rainy today. I was thinking about bowing out of tonight's group run after work and you've convinced me to go after all.
4
At age 55, I was a member of an intercollegiate track team.
I was a student at a Div.3 college, where all students must be accepted by sports teams. We made overnight trips for meets. It was a gas
1
I was going to play football but I was concerned that I might hurt somebody's kid.
1
Next time I'm on the treadmill thinking, "I would rather be doing something else", I'll just be glad that I'm still 'thinking'. Age 66 and going strong.
14
Mens sana in corpore sano? Yes, absolutely.
Convolutedly we may also want to say that the size of your brain is inversely proportional to that of your gut.
7
Due to illness, I am disabled. I can’t walk, never mind run. I would love to generate new brain cells. Any advice for people like me?
22
Yes. Yoga. Chair yoga, or any chair exercise that works for you. In yoga the breath moves the body, so it is a wonderful lifelong activity. Check out Yoga Journal or Yoga International . There are also many resources on Youtube.
11
Add meditation to your daily regimen. Studies have shown that as little as ten minutes a day will also trigger the process of neurogenesis.
3
Use an arm powered pedal drive. Vigorous arm exercise should get your oxygen need increased and respiration more rapid...all good. Agree also about Yoga. Whatever still works in your disabled state should be worked hard!
1
There is probably a continuum here of what amount of exercise produces new neurons, maintains present neurons, and is debilitative (loss with no exercise). Mice forage at night, where brain activity is directly related to finding food. While exercise in humans increases circulation and nutrients/oxygen to the brain, it is not known precisely what effect this has on human thought processes, though we would assume we share some of the same conserved pathways with mice and other animals. We would also assume the spatial stuff would be more pronounced in mice, because it is directly related to finding food. There is research in continuous attractor neural networks (CANN) in mice probing how the brain works in this regard, i.e. positioning in space and remembering.
5
"Spatial stuff" being deeply related to finding food is certainly of both mice and men.
2
NIH brain function studies light the path to the MicroBiome of the gut, among others.
Gut- brain research would link the two.
Antibiotic FED to livestock causes white fat to grow as appetite declines. Animals so fed are unwell. White fat indicates: grass is not fed. Grain is. Trouble.
When tetracycline and grain are fed, tetracycline in the water and mineral feeders, livestock gain weight - become obese. Consumer ignorance leads to purchase of white fat.
Grassfed livestock fat is colored. Nature does not grow white fat.
The NYTimes will do well to publish the research of Hua Helen Wang PhD of OSU. She shows that oral consumption of any antibiotic is trouble for the gut MicroBiome. This practice generates telling white fat and obesity.
Obesity is epidemic today. All livestock fed antibiotic will gain weigh faster. But the weight is unhealthy. We are what we eat.
Few know what livestock are fed. Few know where they are born. Know what you eat.
Destroying the MicroBiome of the gut affects immunity and appetite. Fact.
Only Hua Wang PhD has studied the oral question Her work at Ohio State suggests we should not take antibiotic by mouth.
Pill pushers do not help us. Livestock fed antibiotic can kill us.
Parenteral. Look it up. Subcutaneous works. Costly but effective.
Anaplasmosis is vectored by needle. DVMs then prescribe. It’s a vicious circle.
Not by mouth, Poncho. Know your farmer.
Subcutaneous is ideal. Lazy docs, greedy farmers, complicit vets.
4
Interesting. Don't eat cows or other animals.
6
Extrapolating from such experiments to humans is very dangerous. The article failed to mention that the control mice were confined to a small, shoebox size cage with virtually nothing to do. All mice were inbred, i.e. genetically deprived. The same experiment with normal house mice would show no such differences ! see Klaus et al 2012. "Different regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis in Western house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) and C57BL/6 mice." Behav Brain Res 227(2): 340-347.
7
Best line: "Of course, this experiment used mice, which are not people."
11
If physical exercise was discovered today, it would be considered a miracle medical treatment for optimal health.
18
Everyone seems to be focussed on running. But the causation is probably aerobic exercise and not the running per se. Swimming does far less damage to the body than does running. Wouldn't it be more advisable to put on the Speedo rather than the Nikes?
5
I agree. Also riding a bike should produce the same effect. I think any exercise that increases your heart rate substantially will do.
3
I agree with your first point, that it is the 'aerobic' factor of running and not the actual foot movement. However, as someone who has been a competitive swimmer and half marathoner, the aerobic factor in running is exponential greater in running that swimming. The body is buoyant in the pool and the breathing is built into the stroke motion and consists of very short swallows rather than the nasal and mouth controlled breathing of a run. It would be interesting to compare 'power walking' or calisthenics with actual running. I do pushups which can be very aerobic. I have also lifted weights which is not. As for the legitimate point earlier in the comments above, that lab mice are not field mice, the mice are not the point, as the non-exercised mice didn't generate the neurons. And, Yes! and bad diet will interfere with any aerobic benefit from exercise. We are living, breathing, machines that require using and caring for all our parts.
3
Not everyone has access to a place to swim, and I would assume everyone could go outdoors and run somewhere, preferably away from traffic.
7
Tell the folk who to due poverty, the effects of systemically induced and supported racism, the inequality of our education and health care, both physical and mental, delivery systems and at foundational levels the dysregulating effects of insecure attachment, what some may know as Adverse Childhood Experiences, that what they need to do is keep their brains healthy is to keep exercising.
Spare me and free us from the hubris of academics whose bloated egos continue to heap upon us research that is myopically focused on finding cures to what ails us always at the individual level. They can not "see the forest for the trees."
Brain health begins with secure Attachment and is supported by safe relationships. Exercise is helpful, but it is tinkering in the margins of individual and societal health.
In our devotion to the bright and shiny individual we continue to miss the healing power of safe communities in which to grow secure families who can then practice the attuned parenting that will fundamentally do more for widespread brain heath than the exercise programs only certain classes of people have the freedom and luxury to partake in.
17
Society is capable of chewing gum and walking at the same time — that is to say, we can put out such studies while bemoaning (or, better, trying to do something about) the problems you describe.
14
Why does everything trigger a political type of response? Many of us can’t change our past or communities but we can take steps to improve our health. Our health is shaped by many factors. It’s not all or nothing.
3
Right. Because throughout the history of man kind racism and poverty never existed until recently. You can be poor and healthy.
Ie see prisoners who are jacked from doing pushups squats and pullups all day long. Exercise is free and your body doesn’t care what skin color you are. Your “logic” defies common sense and milleniums of human experience.
2
Your photo model is anorexic. Exercise is great but here we go with the unrealistic role models again. First rule of exercise: some is better than none.
31
The first rule of exercise is to put the fork down. There is nothing unrealistic or unhealthy about the person in the photograph. That is what a human being who burns as many calories as they eat looks like.
11
Now, this comment is depressing. A normal-sized woman is now considered "anorectic" by yourself and (as of this writing) the 12 people who recommended your comment.
11
No, she is not anorexic; she looks like people are supposed to look, lean and strong. Not fat. A beautiful shape.
8
First: I don't think any of the comments refute or diminish the science or the conclusions. The study was well done and it is entirely consistent with past recent work on the issues. Yes, male rats were used. If the women want to pout and wait for a female rat study they can of course do that. The rat/human issues remain, but again, the study and research is very suggestive. Want to ignore it or argue with it? Might be a sign of incipient dementia, or extreme hard-headedness.
Second, if you can't run or do very vigorous exercise, do what you can. Avoid excessive couch time. Sitting is the enemy.
Third, this is about brain cells, not fat loss or weight control. Weight loss consists of about 80% (or more) avoiding excessive/continual insulin production (not eating constantly) and some (10%-20%) exercise and diet control (not dieting, which doesn't work). But of course, exercise is less appealing when you are wildly or even somewhat fat. And dragging extra weight around isn't fun.
If only we could get the author of this review to read the work Jason Fung (MD) has produced about fasting and intermittent fasting. When you combine that with moderate exercise you get results.
I'm 73 now, and I exercise, with tennis and weight-lifting six days a week. I eat only once or twice a day, and I'm at 5'8" and 160#. It all fits together. Ignore it at your peril.
12
Am almost 73, 5'9", walk 3.5 miles daily, and just dropped my weight ten lbs. to 148 pounds by limiting meals to an 'eight-hour' window so that the stomach has 16 hours to reset its chemical balance and the digestion becomes more efficient in generating less inflammation. Having the last meal many hours before bedtime allows the brain full access to the blood supply for deep-cleaning away of toxins and amyloid plaque. The result of vigorous exercise combined with restricted meal times is marked increase in daytime clarity of thought and cognition. So I wholeheartedly agree with Richard.
6
seems you path is working well. Good for me to see since many of these steps I have taken to live a more healthy life and I can say at 86 it is working its magic, or just following natures normal course. For those who wish to wait for defiinitive science based studies of their particular sub group, I would only add: science is a process and from time to time paradigms shift and what you thought was true, isn't anymore. In exercise and nutrition that is essential to consider, many things are unproven by science as yet. But the course described by Richard works for at least one other person, me.
As an aging lifelong runner I'd like to add that neurogenesis is a gift and it's awesome!
Professor Rusty Gage of Salk Institute's Laboratory of Genetics showed early evidence of this run-driven neurogenesis back in 1998 and got a lot of us to put our sneakers on and head to Central Park.
Also a study Gage’s group published in November 1998, in collaboration with Swedish colleagues at the Salgrenska University Hospital, Göteburg, was the first to demonstrate that adult humans grow new brain cells, overturning years of dogma that stated we are born with all the brain cells we will ever have and only lose cells during our lives.
Run For Life - makes good sense
6
The best thing you can do? GET A DOG. A dog gets you outside and moving, even when it's 20 below zero (I live in Vermont). Even when it's pitch black and you've just come home from a dinner party and you're beat. At 7 a.m., rain or shine. No excuses. You gotta walk your dog.
Your brain will thank you.
63
As will your dog and (s)he will let you know that the effort was worth it.
14
I am 84. For the past 34 years I have been walking every morning at 7: AM with a friend and neighbor. We're on our third dog.
21
So true. I have two very active pit bulls. Rain or shine, physical injuries or no (mine not the dogs'), I have to take them for at least one very, very long walk every two days.
2
I ran, played soccer, and trained a highly aerobic martial art into my early 50's.
Then I hit the couch. (the result of the inevitable injury, of course)
At 68 I am riding a mountain bike. The ascents are are formidable (for me). Conditioning is an issue and I must learn how to overcome the technical difficulties of rocks. Dealing with both the conditioning and rocks requires a concentration I've simply never dealt with before.
It ain't scientific, but it is the truth. I am thinking like I've never thought before. New brain cells? God, I hope so. They can't show up soon enough.
27
i'll be a septuagenarian thirteen days from today, and I've been a runner for the past 55 years. I still run twelve weekly miles of steep, rocky, rutted trail -- Mt. Wilson Trail, in Sierra Madre, California, where I have now been living for 26 years.
Just as I was 55 years ago, I am still 5' 8" and still weigh 139 pounds, with as flat a stomach as I had back then. Few runners one-third my age can keep up with me on the trail.
Though I won't be so presumptuous as to establish a causal relationship between my running and the undiminished sharpness of my brain and correlated undimmed memory, I cannot but be (very) tempted to do so.
Note that I earned my second master's degree twelve years ago, 47 years after receiving my first one from an elite university in northern Europe.
14
I used to run everyday except Sundays from my late 40's to my late 50's until I fell and broke both arms. Fear of falling again drove me inside a gym with a $75/hr. personal trainer for a few years. Three times a week I was tormented by that man with minimal changes. Today at 64 I get on a treadmill for 30 minutes 7 days a week. That's all. No more compulsive exercising. My blood chemistry is great and my PMD told me to come back in a year. I manage my blood pressure and cholesterol with medication. Overall, I feel pretty good.
Now, if I can only remember what my point in this comment was!
17
MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO!
A healthy mind in a healthy body!
It’s an age-old advice that was good for the Ancient Romans,
and it’s good for us modern-day couch-potato Americans.
There's nothing new under the sun.
11
C'mon, everyone knows it's the mice experimenting on humans.
20
Interesting...all I can say is based on my own admittedly non-scientific experience. Most runners I have known have been, at best, mentally average - even conventual and prosaic. Whereas, the sharpest people I have known sit around a lot and do actual thinking. This makes sense: If you want a better working brain, that's what you need to exercise - not your legs.
It is possible that exercise will help slow the deterioration of mice brains (and brains of humans who haven't really advanced past the mouse stage) but if you want a world-class brain, you must spend all your time pursuing that goal which leaves very little time for running around.
7
Really? You're arguing that the only way to maintain sharpness is not having enough time to exercise? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of studies demonstrating the benefit of exercise for mental functioning (for mice and for people that have advanced past the "mouse-stage", whatever that means). I'm sure even the sharpest people you know could benefit from going on a run once in a while. Also, anecdotal evidence isn't exactly the best counter argument to scientific research.
2
{if you want a world-class brain, you must spend all your time pursuing that goal which leaves very little time for running around.}
in my experience, extremely smart people tend not to be sedentary. think of your average college town: doesn't it seem like there's a disproportionate number of lean bodies? this is not to say that our best and brightest should be training for marathons instead of camped out in libraries; still, there's a middle course.
9
I think you're overdue for a run.
17
Is there any evidence that new neurons are produced in adult human brains outside the hippocampus? I wish there had been some discussion of this in the article about mice.
2
While the majority of adult neurogenesis in humans occurs in the hippocampus, there is evidence that new neurons are produced and integrate into the striatum of adult humans as well. Interestingly, this neurogenesis is absent in patients with Huntington's disease (Ernst et al., Cell, 2014).
6
I thought that the hippocampus is where very large animals go to college.
27
Thanks! That is very helpful.
Another finding touting the benefits of exercise, which I'm reading from my desk bound office perch. I used to exercise during my lunch hour, but somewhere in the last decade, lunch hour disappeared. I used to get up early in the morning, but somewhere along the way 9 to 5 became 8:30 to 5:30. I used to try to grab a workout on my way home but my commute is too long to be able to pick up my child before his after school program closes. I feel like the mouse on the wheel, but doubt this is in any way beneficial to my health.
78
Perhaps you could order a standing desk.
3
Walking.
12
I think that gymnasiums at churches, schools and community centers should open a few evenings a week from 6:30 PM-9:30 PM to hold dances for anyone in the community who would like to attend. Encourage movement. Build communities.
32
“Males were used to avoid accounting for the effects of the female reproductive cycle”
Great - science that may not apply to females. Good job, science, striving for knowledge and treatments for only half of the population.
31
@Margaret: Males are actually LESS than half the population!
3
Never let proper scientific methodology get on the way of your social justice tripwire.
5
Come on, now, they're using mice... If you're willing to extrapolate the results from mice to people, then surely you can extrapolate them from males to females!
2
Two friends, both obese.Both 80.
One dieted, exercised, walked regularly for the past five years.
Other did none of the above.
First is mentally and physically fit.
Second is in first stage dementia and poor physically.
Only two examples, but they fit the storyline.
I am thin, mentally agile, but no exercise.
I have to look to their examples and do something.
7
For me, at 73, and into exercise, I would suggest, knowing nothing more about you than than what you have posted, that some exercise would be good, but starting gently, with the goal of feeling more competent physically, and enjoying life more. I mean, you could start training for a marathon, but really, do you want to do that? Try lifting some weights. I do that, and tennis. Weight training is effective at any age. That will surprise your friends.
1
As I read through the comments I am sensing deep sighs from older runners who have been reluctantly forced to hang up their running shoes. Please consider swimming. You still get a good aerobic workout without the shin splints…..Try it……
It is much better than reminiscing the “good old days” when an lunch-time/evening/Saturday run was one of the highlights of the week while gaining weight and watching your heart rate go up…..Do not give up!........Do not give up!
12
Has anyone looked at the prolific scientist Hawking? Confined to his wheelchair, his brain seems to show no sign of diminished capacity. Run, if you want to. But, before jumping from the experimental mice to man consider the empirical data as well.
11
Come on! One example does not count as "empirical data."
Does work for a handy excuse to stay on the couch! (It will join my own crowded list.)
8
Do you consider talking about one case as data?
8
This sounds just like the non-runners who counter every new piece of pro-exercise science with: “but, Jim Fixx!”
Hawking a is an outlier. (In many ways) Remain sedentary at your own risk. And have the integrity to own that without resorting to intellectually flimsy rationalizations.
4
I'm 60-years-old and had been running since 1975. I absolutely loved it; however, now my knees are gone and with a dicky-ticker (discovered only recently) I find running a real challenge. Depression as set in now. I find walking a bit boring (having done it in Boy Scouts and the US Army) so I'm relegated to drinking Scotch, listening to classic jazz and remembering what once was. Such is life. But, holy cow, did I ever love the high from running. I can think of only one other activity I enjoy more.
53
Water aerobics! I can't run...but I can sprint in the shallow water without damage!
11
Bicycle! I love it
6
Do not give up!..............Try swimming.......you get a good aerobic workout as well...........try it!
14
Would this be referred to as "jogging your memory?"
49
If exercise, as the research Gretchen Reynold's column cites, invigorate neural connectedness, potentially delay the onset of dementia, why is it that so much of advancing technology, including the hot selling Amazon Echo, where you can just command Alexa to do the physical (and mental) work for you, as in turning on an air conditioner upstairs so that you don't have to get off your couch, is aimed at its elimination?
I would assume that similar potentials exist for mental exercise also being eliminated by such technologies as GPS turn by turn removing the need for developing and maintaining our "spatial memory, which is our internal map of where we have been and how we got there."
11
These studies are consistent with what has been known for a number of years about the exercise-induced promotion of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Growth Factor (BDNF) levels in the brain, and the beneficial (albeit apparently very transient) effects this has on hippocampal neurons. Previous studies suggest that BDNF levels increase with virtually any type of exercise, not necessarily aerobic. Not a lot of new information here- but then again the impact factors of the two journals cited in the NYT article are not terribly high. A little more digging by the author could have produced a more comprehensive (and perhaps more compelling) article.
6
Wondering if exercise also induces the brain to discard cells quicker, since it triggers the rate of new cell production in the brain.
3
This study seems to compliment the study Dr. Marion Diamond published in 1985 with the findings of an experiment with older rats — the equivalent of about 75 years old in human terms — that had been placed in a stimulating environment. After six months, they showed a thickening of the cortex, a sign that the brain cells had become larger and more active. Glad to see the study replicated. Everett Murphy M.D.
5
Too many comments about actually running. It's the movement that's important. Brisk and somewhat physically demanding movement. Pick your favorite. As I got fitter after losing 57 lbs in my early 50's ( now 58) I thought of running as the holy grail of fitness. Then I looked at the data regarding injury and running including some acquaintances. Runners get injured a lot. Mostly strains, pulls etc but lots of more serious stuff also. When injured you stop moving!! It can be for a few days or weeks but often it longer. You then spend time not moving and longing to get back out there.
For myself my first goal of exercise is don't get injured period. You will get sore muscles in the beginning what ever you do and of course accidents are possible in things like cycling or on gym gear but runners are significantly more likely to be sidelined due to the actual activities toll on the body. Look at the data.
42
True. I was sprinting 100 m at a time as part of interval training in running. Now the inner side of an achilles tendon is permanently damaged (since 18 months ago at age 66) and I can never run again. I can walk briskly without pain, shuffle a bit on a treadmill, and cycle. My sin was letting the shoes wear out their proper cushioning. I miss the feeling of accomplishment of sprinting.
3
I like dancing -- swing dance is great, plus you get the music AND physical touch from your partner.
8
That's all? you let your shoes wear out? Did the doctor say anything else? I'm celebrating 40 years of jogging this year and I'd really like to keep on, never even heard of inner Achilles damage. I'm sorry you had to give it up.
1
I was a late bloomer. I didn't become physically active until my early 50's. I was overweight, sedentary, starting to feel all the aches and pains associated with what we consider "normal aging." Scariest of all was my brain wasn't working like it used to. I had to work to remember things that I thought I should remember.
At age 53 I started exercising on the elliptical and lifting weights with the goal of losing weight. As I got more fit I gained confidence and tried a spin class. I became proficient at it. Then I took up running. I had never run a mile in my life. Within a year I could run a half marathon. I was now 55 and in the best physical shape of my life.
Very early into my fitness journey I noticed changes I hadn't expected. My brain started to come out of its fog. I no longer had memory problems, and it only improved. Now I could almost anything I wanted to, even people's names from 50 years ago--things I would never have been able to recall a few months before. My balance improved, too. I could stand on one leg to put my socks on.
I'm 59 now. My fitness level has been up and down the past 4 years. If I'm sedentary for a period of time, my brain function deteriorates along with my physical fitness. The more active I am, the more it improves. Brain function improves with exercise. I don't need a study to prove it. I've experienced it personally. The good news is it doesn't matter how old you are--you will only improve. Physical activity is the fountain of youth!
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I would argue that Steven Hawkings' brain is doing fine without physical exercise.
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I would suspect Hawkings is an outlier.
Steven Hawkings started out with a brain that worked better than most; the rest of us should probably exercise. I started running earlier this year, at 64, and will run my first half marathon in two weeks. I can attest to the brain-fog lift effect, also. Plus I have so much more stamina, which makes problem solving and decision making easier. These are benefits I did not expect at all, but will be loathe to give up if I have to stop running anytime soon. Consider running if your retirement funds look a little thin and you have to keep working until you're 70. I feel 10 years younger than I did before running. Plus all my new running friends are 25 years younger, so there's that, too.
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I have taken up Nordic stick walking about 350 minutes a week. My hearing has improved along with some thought processes. Enough exercise and attention to diet certainly matters as I enter the fourth quarter century...
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some brains thrive on exercise. others not so much. it's all personalized.
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did you read the article?
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So what does this mean for people with diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, which causes lesions in the brain and destroys neurons? Are there any ongoing studies about people with MS who exercise and how their brains respond? it seems like research involving humans and not mice would make more sense.
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Excellent question about MS. I agree that studies on humans would be more interesting probably more useful in many cases, but studies on mice are often easier. In one of these studies, the mice ran for months, equivalent to years for humans, and in both studies the subjects (or some of them) were injected with a modified rabies vaccine. It's probably hard to recruit human volunteers for that. Scientific studies are often constrained by what is feasible and affordable. The studies that can be realistically performed on humans might not address questions that can be investigated with other sorts of subjects.
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Not many human subject will allow researcher to slice up their brains.
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Since regular exercise has a positive effect and sedentary lifestyle choices have a negative impact on the brain, one has to wonder if the things that are beneficial for cardiovascular health could be good for neurological health as well? The brain and the heart are the body's two most energy-intensive areas. I just read on q10facts. com that MS patients taking CoQ10 alleviated depression and fatigue. If CoQ10 is cardio-protective and has positive implications in energy levels and depression, one has to wonder if other neurological conditions could benefit as well?
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So how do you explain Stephen Hawking?
Exercise is the boring & meaningless activity imaginable.
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The more relevant question for most people may be, how do we explain you?
If you can think about things like that while exercising, the activity becomes much more interesting and meaningful.
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How to explain Hawking? Good question. By this line of reasoning he should be
mentally challenged.
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Actually, by this line of reasoning, one can come to appreciate how much brilliance he had to spare.
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Alas. "Males were used to avoid accounting for the effects of the female reproductive cycle." Science will forever be biased against women brains. All the evidence from my n=1 experiment keeps me running, in spite of the effects of my reproductive cycle.
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There certainly is bias against women (or females) in science, both as experimenters and subjects, and this is sad and unfortunate. In this particular case, though, the ability to study the brains of male mice helped teams of researchers led by a woman to publish interesting results in relatively short order. Also, having found positive results in male mice, now there is more reason to extend the study to female mice (perhaps longer or more costly experiments can be justified). What I would really like to see are more questions, hypotheses, and experiments in which the particular characteristics of women are an advantage.
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I've been a moderate jogger since my 20s, always said my ambition is still to running when I'm 80. At 66 I'm slowed a bit bit still at it. so far so good! Whether or not it keeps dementia at bay (hope so). it keeps me feeling good.
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Catherine, before you slow much more give cycling on a stationary bike a go. I'm 65 and no longer able to run. Soon after running became too much of an orthopaedic challenge I began spinning at my YMCA. It's the safest and easiest way to get a great cardio workout (minus the pounding). Good luck.
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Fine as long as you know what you're doing, but refer to a recent NY Times article that reports on excessive spinning, which can severely injure certain thigh muscles to the extent of wreaking havoc on the rest of the body.
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The report isn't that excessive spinning causes injury but that taking on a new high-intensity exercise regime can be damaging. Spinning classes tend to be designed for the very fit. It's always prudent to begin a new exercise plan slowly and to always listen to what your body is telling you.
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If mice were people, researchers would find that exercising the brain through reading and critical thinking is also hugely beneficial. Those humans who get their news from Twitter, Facebook, and ten second videos must surely be diminishing the potency of their brain cells.
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Oh come on! For pete's sake! Do this study with females! Yes, we have reproductive organs, so do guys! Why doesn't that factor into this study and disqualify them?
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I see this comment on mouse studies a lot. Having researched mice in the past, I can attest that the use of mice is not a reflection of the researchers gender bias, but to the logistics of mice. Females are rate limiting for making more mice, while male mice are more...expendable. It's a small thing but when you're managing lab costs it adds up. It's not an absolute defense because it's very possible to do the studies in females, but it's the reason so many studies that shouldn't be affected by sex are studied using males.
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It might be nice to see a whole article on why male mice are more suitable than female mice for some studies. I don't assume that they are equally well suited for all studies and perhaps there are some studies for which female mice are more suitable. I'm not a scientist who experiments with mice, though, and when an eminent female scientist decides that she'd prefer to use male mice in her experiments, I assume that she's making the right decision.
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@Matt: Your reason might apply to other studies, but this article actually stated the reason that females weren't used in this experiment: "to avoid accounting for the effects of the female reproductive cycle." Not being a mouse expert, I assume that that is a legitimate reason.
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I have been jogging twice a week for the last 6 years. Having read about the scientific results from the article, I can’t even imagine how smart I am now. :) I'm happy to understand that dementia is afraid of me. It even seems to me that I am able to do some volunteering sharing me neuro cells with those who are in need. :) Just do not hesitate to contact me in case of emergency. :)
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Good grief. What's with some of the comments here. Usually I look forward to these at the end of these articles.
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We're all commenting. Not exercising. HA!
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How to ensure it's the running and not the rabies
The new born, the infant, the toddler, and most vividly the child who learns to walk and climb and run and balance on precarious places does NOT do it for the brain. Let's not prostitute movement for what it springs from: "The impetus to move … comes not from the infinity of what the body is … but from the finitude of what it is not," says Brian Pronger in his book Body Fascism. Let's keep it simple and unadulterated with secondary and more inferior motives!
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What is the evidence for your suggestion that new neurons arise anywhere in the adult human brain other than the olfactory bulb and a small region of the hypocampus?
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So if mice exercising for a month represents years and years of human activity, how much is exercising for a week in human terms?
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Nice study.
Does moving my arm to drink my beer count?
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Yes- those are like dumbbell bicep curls. But smart -multitasking!
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Yes, in the very likely scenario that you do it repeatedly over a period of hours and with enough repetitive movement to generate some form of cardiovascular effort. Keep up the good work.
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Especially if it's warm British beer.
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Yes, women have cyclical hormones as men have just raging hormones. Let's have the lady mice have a go at the research as well.
You can let the lady mice carry the groceries and do the laundry while running as that will produce a more realistic scenario!
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Ha! I'm assuming that this is posted tongue-in-cheek and I'm laughing with you too. For those who are offended by the selection of male mice for this study. lets give the researchers a break! This is how science is done. You start with the simplest models and refine it with more factors as you learn more from testing the model. The use of the male mice for the model is more of a nod to how much scientists can identify and control the physiological factors that may affect the results in this round of testing.
The statistician George Box said "all models are bad, some are useful".
Some of the smartest people on earth; those who write software, design computer chips, and engineer the word around us are the most sedentary couch potatoes among us. Their bodies my be inactive but their minds burn more calories than a bus load of patrons on the expressway to Atlantic City.
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These smarties also burn out faster and produce one or two flashes in the pan. For consistency, imagination and long term performance I will pick the more active ones. As a I hiring manager, I look for those with life outside the office.
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Check back with these geniuses when they are 60, 70 & 80! Tell me then how well their brains are doing!
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I've been a software developer for 50 years and running for 55, and my experience is that software people are not generally inactive. In my running group of about 50 people, I would say that about half of the people -- both men and women -- are engineers of some sort.
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Dementia is not one disease, but many, just as cancer is not one disease, but many. All research that contributes to our understanding of dementia is important, but let's not jump to conclusions too fast. The disease process is very complex. I would not argue with the statement that exercise is a huge benefit to the human body and mind. But I'd venture to say that in my late father's dementia unit there were folks who had been very fit and exercised regularly, including my father. I expect that as treatments are developed, there will be no "magic bullet," including exercise, but various forms of treatment and strategies for prevention and hopefully, cure.
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Absolutely. My father was a runner from age 18 to about 76 - after his dementia was diagnosed. He was a good runner too, a club athlete, marathons in sub 2.5 hours. He was healthy and active in other fields all his life. Now he can barely walk. There is as you say no ‘magic bullet’.
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My sibling is never still, but at 70 has dementia. She has a perfect BMI, has been swimming 4 days a week and walking over 10000 steps everyday for 30 years, however she started showing determination at 65. She has been healthy all her life but has had insomnia starting in her early 40’s and had 2 concussions in her lifetime. There are so many factors, one study will not explain what is happening to our aging population.
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A sub-2.5 hour marathoner?!? Good for him! No one can ever take those times away from him!
2
Numerous studies have demonstrated the likely physical and mental importance of moving. I am in the gym six days a week. But in addition, I have gotten into a habit that helps me to minimize the sedentary and manipulative in my daily life. When I watch television I get up and begin walking every time the commercials begin.
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"Of course, this experiment used mice, which are not people."...Scientists...stating the obvious one day, every day, 24/7
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Hey mice are just fellow mammals. Actually 97.5 % of our working DNA is shared with mice.
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So a mouse is 97.5 % as smart as a human ?
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Yes, Jeffrey, compared to a bacterium a mouse is almost as intelligent as a human.
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Thanks New York Tine for sharing this validating research. Movement, especially aerobic (in the presence of oxygen) activity has a profound effect on increasing neuroplasticity, neurofenesis wnd executive function. My doctoral research and years practicing as a group dance/fitness have demonstrated profound positive cognitive, social, emotional, and physical benefits for vibrant older adults in their 7th, 8th, and 9th decade. This is uplifting for participants and their families. It is a stark contrast to what I witness after a class when visiting my mother, and friends in memory care. Movement is life, increases learning can help preserve and protect those we love.
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So the implication seems to be that exercising increases the number of brain cells when science has repeatedly said that brain cells, once dead, do not replenish themselves. Great news for drinkers everywhere.
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Actually, 'science ' never said that, you misinterpreted it.
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Such a shame that this important work doesn’t necessarily pertain to those who comprise 66% of Alzheimer’s patients - women. But yes, female mice do have those pesky hormones!
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