Exercise and the Brain By Mrs Vera West

     I pay particular interest to material on health which may help our older readers. I use myself, probably one of the oldest people active here (age  … never ask a lady her age young fellow!), as a sample space. For example, today, having forgotten where I put my medication for memory loss, I am naturally worried about … what? Oh, memory loss, that’s right! What I need is some more exercise to literally blow the neural cobwebs out of my brain:
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-08-11-exercise-preserves-brain-cells-and-prevents-memory-loss.html

“In a study carried out by researchers at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, the benefits of exercise on brain health have been emphasized. Researchers found that exercise can help preserve brain cells and prevent loss of memory, cognitive problems, and general problems in memory. For the study, the researchers assigned different groups of mice to three different workout programs in order to identify the effects of the exercises on memory and overall brain health. The three types of workout programs studied were weight lifting, running, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT). These were created as a model of approximately what the typical human might do in a workout program. At the end of the study, all of the mice exhibited general fitness gains.

In particular, aerobic activity was found to enhance the health of brain cells and prevent memory problems better than the two other exercise programs. Although the weight lifting group and the HIIT group showed better fat-burning activities than the aerobic group, they did not show any signs of new brain cell growth or prevention in memory loss and other memory problems. The Finnish study was not the only study to demonstrate the benefits of exercise to the brain. In fact, a 2014 study of elderly women revealed a similar effect. In that study, elderly women who engaged in regular aerobic exercise exhibited growth in the region of the brain responsible for memory. Meanwhile, those who engaged only in weightlifting did not show this positive effect on their brain cells.”

     The limitations of the study is that it is an animal study; a mouse study, and those all need to be taken with a piece of cheese. Nevertheless, the results that exercise benefits the brain, are not inconsistent with a body of other evidence of the cardio-vascular benefits of exercise, and with everything like this, there can only be good effects from exercising more. And, it does not have to be gut-busting powerlifting either, which would be dangerous for the elderly, and as the study showed, the weight lifting did not have the neurological benefit for the mice. Mice know best. Therefore, a nice brisk walk in the cool evening breeze would go down just fine. Take the dog, your pet mouse, or your husband, whatever pet you have!