Many of us know the benefits of regular exercise in keeping people active and healthy, especially people in the second half of life. Now researchers from the University of Illinois have looked at more than 100 recent studies and highlighted how such exercise also benefits brain health and maintains cognitive powers.
The researchers, led by Dr Michelle W. Voss, reviewed 111 studies showing the effects of aerobic exercise and strength training on people from children as young as 5, to elderly people aged up to 75. They also extrapolated findings from animal studies of rats and mice, on the effects of such exercises on the rodent brain.
Regular Exercise Necessary for Survival
The researchers said the increasing trend towards sedentary behaviour could be seen as a maladaptation, and that evolutionarily, regular physical activity was vital for human survival.
“There is an increasing amount of research, much of it epidemiological, which argues for numerous long-term health benefits of regular physical activity and exercise. For example, studies have reported an inverse relationship between physical activity and the risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular related disease and death, osteoporosis, colon and breast cancer), and mental disorders,” they write in their paper, Exercise, Brain, and Cognition Across the Lifespan, published online at Journal of Applied Physiology.
“Despite this increasing wealth of knowledge concerning the relationship between physical activity and health, we have become an increasingly sedentary society. It has been estimated that less than 50% of children (6-11 years) and only 8% of adolescents (12-19 years) are active the recommended 60 minutes most days of the week, whereas only less than 5% of adults (20-59 years) and elderly (60+ years) are active the recommended 30 minutes a day. Furthermore, it has been suggested that our current sedentary nature represents a maladaptation of our evolutionary history in which high levels of physical activity were required for survival”.
Lack of Physical Exercise Could Slow Brain
The review suggested that aerobic exercise is important during childhood for developing cognitive abilities that are important throughout life. They noted that children’s physical inactivity is associated with poorer academic performance and results on standard neuropsychological tests, while exercise programs appear to improve their memory, attention, and decision-making skills.
It isn’t only children whose brains benefit from regular aerobic exercise. The researchers found evidence to support the idea that aerobic exercise benefits cognitive performance, brain function and brain structure in adults up to 75 years old.
Aerobic Exercise Aids Multi-tasking, Memory
“These effects also extend to young and elderly adults, with solid evidence for aerobic training benefiting executive functions, including multi-tasking, planning, and inhibition, and increasing the volume of brain structures important for memory,” they wrote.
“Aerobically trained older adults had greater increases in brain activity in the frontal and parietal cortices … brain areas involved in processes important for task performance, such as conflict resolution and selective attention.”
The researchers commented that “participating in an aerobic training program improves the aging brain’s ability to effectively engage task- relevant resources, particularly under cognitively challenging conditions.”
Brain Benefits of Strength Training
There was less evidence of the benefits of strength training on brain health in children, but the researchers saw that elderly brain certainly benefitted from resistance training.
“Although resistance training has a broad range of systemic benefits, very few studies to date have specifically focused on the role of resistance training in promoting cognitive health across the lifespan,” they wrote. “Studies in older adults suggest that high-intensity and high-load training can improve memory.”
They quoted a study that demonstrated that six months of moderate to high intensity resistance training three times a week improved memory performance and verbal concepts in men aged 65 to 75 years.
The researchers also noted that resistance training might benefit people at risk of developing Alzheimers. “Recent work by Busse and colleagues suggests that resistance training may also be beneficial for sedentary older adults at greater risk for Alzheimer’s disease – those with objective mild memory impairment,” they wrote.
Physical Exercise Better than Brain Training
Dr Voss and her colleagues noted the proliferation of brain training games and online exercises aimed at older adults. They said there was as yet little evidence that such programs, unaccompanied by regular physical exertion, would do much to improve seniors’ cognitive abilities.
However, their analysis of the 111 studies into physical exercise showed them that regular aerobic and strength training had clear benefits for the cognitive and decision-making powers of everyone from childhood to old age.
“It is increasingly prevalent in the print media, television, and the Internet to be bombarded with advertisements for products and programs to enhance mental and physical health in a relatively painless fashion through miracle elixirs, computer-based training, or gaming programs, or brief exercise programs,” they wrote
“Although there is little convincing scientific evidence for such claims, there have been some promising developments in the scientific literature with regard to physical activity and exercise effects on cognitive and brain health.”
Readers might also be interested in reading Maximise Your Exercise at Every Life Stage, Resistance Training at Any Age and Exercise Could Prevent Dementia.
The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and should not be used for diagnosis or to guide treatment without the opinion of a health professional. Any reader who is concerned about his or her health should contact a doctor for advice.
Sue Cartledge - I'm a science, health, nutrition and lifestyle journalist, fascinated by the way the physical world operates in all its forms, and how ...
Join the Conversation