Researchers from Japan’s University of Tsukuba recently published an interesting article further supporting the benefits of exercise for brain health.
In their study (published in the most recent issue of The Journal of Physiology), exercising rats had significant decreases of glycogen in the brain following a single bout of exercise. However, if these rats were allowed to eat right afterward, the glycogen levels not only returned to baseline, they surpassed those baseline levels. It might seem discouraging to learn that after 24 hours, the glycogen levels decreased to pre-exercise levels.
However, if these rats participated in a four week running program, the post-exercise levels began to become the new baseline. Said differently, the baseline glycogen levels significantly increased with consistent participation in a running program!
Hideaki Soya, lead researcher of this study, wonders if this “may be a key mechanism underlying exercise-enhanced cognitive function . . . it is tempting to suggest that increased storage and utility of brain glycogen in the cortex and hippocampus might be involved in the development” of improved brain function.
So, re-read this post and drink some chocolate milk after your next workout!
(Originally read in the NY Times, 2/22/2012)
Posted February 26th, 2012. Add a comment
From the American College of Sports Medicine:
Research released this month by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) finds that increasing physical activity may decrease the risk of dementia-related death. The study, titled “Cardiorespiratory Fitness as a Predictor of Dementia Mortality in Men and Women,” appears in this month’s issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the official journal of ACSM. The article is one of the first reports to examine the relationship between objectively measured cardiorespiratory fitness levels and dementia-related deaths in a sample of nearly 60,000 adults.
Public health efforts in the U.S. have triggered gradual declines in deaths associated with heart disease, breast cancer and stroke over the past few years. Deaths related to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, however, have increased dramatically over the last 15 years, skyrocketing 46 percent between 2002 and 2006.
Researchers conducted baseline examinations and maximal exercise tests for 14,811 women and 45,078 men, ages 20-88 years, at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas. Baseline examinations included self-reported personal and family medical history, a questionnaire on demographic information and health habits, blood chemistry tests, and other clinical measurements. Participants were grouped into one of three fitness categories – low fit, middle fit or high fit – based on their performance on the fitness test.
“A major strength of our study is the use of standardized and objective physical activity measurement,” said Rui Liu, Ph.D., currently a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. “Cardiorespiratory fitness is preferable to self-reported physical activity because it is an objective, reproducible measure that is more closely correlated with a person’s usual level of physical activity and many health outcomes.” Liu conducted the analysis as part of her dissertation at the University of South Carolina.
By Dec. 31, 2003 (an average of 17 years after the baseline examinations), there were 4,047 deaths. The National Death Index attributed 164 of these mortalities to dementia (72 vascular dementia and 92 Alzheimer’s disease). Of the 164 individuals whose deaths were related to dementia, 123 were in the low-fit category, 23 were in the medium-fit category, and 18 were in the high-fit category. Compared to the least-fit individuals, those in the medium- and high-fitness groups had less than half the risk of dying with dementia.
“These findings support physical activity promotion campaigns by organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association and should encourage individuals to be physically active,” said Liu. “Following the current physical activity recommendations from the American College of Sports Medicine will keep most individuals out of the low-fit category and may reduce their risk of dying with dementia.”
Posted February 8th, 2012. Add a comment
Did you know that fat cells can be either white or brown and that each type has a different function?
White fat is the type we typically think of when we think of fat cells. This white fat has, as one of its primary jobs, the ability to insulate us. This is the fat many of us don’t like when we look in the mirror.
Brown fat, on the other hand, has the unique ability to generate heat and therefore burns energy. A study from several years ago found that when these brown fat cells were destroyed, mice became obese. So, is there a way to increase this brown fat? (One interesting way to increase brown fat is simply by being cold; this causes so-called thermogenesis and therefore energy expenditure.)
Harvard researchers began a (newly published) study with the belief that something besides “just” exercise expends energy. What they found was a hormone (irisin) that increases as a result of exercise (running, specifically). Irisin, it turns out, transforms white fat cells into brown fat cells; that is, this hormone turns fat cells from insulators to cells that actually burn calories!
What’s really cool about this is that when injected into mice, irisin changes white fat cells to brown. What results is:
- increased energy expenditure
- improvements in obesity, and
- better glucose (blood sugar) control (which might help those with diabetes)
To summarize:
- Exercise increases irisin levels.
- Increased irisin levels change white fat cells to brown fat cells.
- Brown fat cells reduce obesity!
Posted January 16th, 2012. Add a comment
With the start of the new year, are you faced with what you perceive as an “impossible goal?” Below are some strategies from the National Strength and Conditioning Association to help you confront and overcome both physical and mental hurdles to achieving your goals.
- Focus on the process. Every training program has a plan. Embedded in this plan is a process or many processes. It is important to get your thoughts away from the outcome and place your mental energy on what you need to do to accomplish the task. Focus on what you control, which is your performance, not the end result. This means developing the appropriate plan to achieve your goal.
- Do it, then do it. You read it right—do it, then do it. This means:
- Mentally perform and succeed. See, feel, mentally experience successfully performing and accomplishing your goal.
- Physically perform the skill just as you have in your imagination. This includes identifying weak points, then following your plan to eliminate them.
- Give yourself reasons to believe. Don’t accept your doubts, instead, battle against them. Convince yourself with “the facts” as to why you should be and will be successful. Identify the reasons you will be successful and use them to combat the lingering doubts. These reasons can come from the good things you have done in training and past competitions, positive comments from coaches or teammates, or your work ethic. Focus on optimizing your training to build confidence in all your abilities.
- Try, try again. How you react to previous failures is going to influence future attempts at similar challenges. Stop telling yourself, “I’ll never be able to do this.” Start analyzing what you need to do differently and what you need to work on to improve your performance. Learn the lessons from your failures and apply them to future endeavors when you try and try again.
- When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Enough said.
So . . . ever wonder why we have all that hair (albeit quite fine and nearly invisible) on our bodies? Well, researchers from University of Sheffield in the UK did, and what they found was quite interesting.
Turns out, that after placing so-called bed bugs–hungry bed bugs at that–on shaved and unshaved areas, “when the bug was on a hairy patch it was detected, on average, every four seconds. When it was on a shaved patch, more than ten seconds elapsed between detections.” In addition, bugs placed on hairy skin took about 20% longer before they attempted to bite the subjects.
So, does that make you think twice about shaving?
