Team Fox members enjoying a Zumba workout
Move it or lose it. That's the advice of researchers delving into how long the "brain-boosting" effects of exercise last. The verdict: For improved brain health, you have to maintain a fitness regime.
Over the past year we've seen several studies demonstrate the efficacy of exercise for not only brain health, but in the management of Parkinson's symptoms. But what happens when life gets in the way of good intentions and our exercise programs fall to the wayside?
Quick, to the lab (rats)!
Researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil studied the effects of half of a group of healthy, adult rats to run at will on running wheels. Rats enjoy that activity and, for a week, they enthusiastically skittered on their wheels. The animals were also injected with a substance that marks newborn neurons in the hippocampus, or memory center of the brain, so that the scientists would be able to track how many cells had been created. Inactive animals, including people, create new brain cells, but exercise is known to spark the creation of two or three times as many new hippocampal neurons.
A separate control group was housed in cages with locked wheels, so that they remained sedentary. They were also monitored for new brain cell growth. After a week, the runners’ wheels were locked and they, too, became inactive.
The (now, not) surprising results? The rats who had run performed better than inactive rats on memory tests and had twice as many newborn neurons. But, after several weeks of inactivity our runner rats began to catch up to their sedentary peers, performing poorer on memory tests and indicating "that the exercise-induced benefits may be transient."
The takeaway: discover a fitness routine that you enjoy. Incentivize the experience to ensure you stick to your schedule. Head to the gym to watch your favorite TV show (we know of a good one airing this fall), encourage a friend to go for a walk, join a dance class, or make a play date with a grandchild. Fitness shouldn't require you to join a gym, purchase equipment or feel bad about yourself.