Oliver Moody, Science Correspondent
The Times
Mr Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:
“Whilst we wait for medical research to come up with a medical treatment for dementia (we have been waiting a long time), the research below suggests that for older people just 1 hour of exercise per week (it doesn’t matter what exercise), can reverse mental decline. As with so many health conditions alteration of lifestyle can have very positive effects.
So often chronic health conditions DO NOT have just 1 cause, tackling the factors that contribute to the symptoms can have very beneficial effects, intelligent understand of physiology helps to develop these treatment pathways. The mechanism of why exercise can have this positive effect is not shared but I suspect it is because of improvement in metabolism, increased arterial circulation to the brain and venous drainage, increased oxygenation on a cellular level (by improved breathing and raising of ETCO2), improvement in cervical (neck function) through mobilisation (movement) to name but a few. Imagine what we could do by adopting an even more integrated approach looking to improve autonomic nervous system function (breathing and meditation, Osteopathic Manual treatment), and manage glucose dysregulation via improvement in diet (Alzheimer’s is also know as type 3 diabetes). Watch this space.”
Older people who have lapsed into a sedentary lifestyle can reverse their mental decline with as little as 52 hours of exercise a year, research has indicated.
Scientists believe that almost any kind of physical activity, from yoga and tai chi to running and cycling, will lead to tangible cognitive benefits if it can be kept up for long enough.
Their analysis of 98 studies involving more than 11,000 people aged above 60 found that sustained exercise brought measurable improvements in concentration, processing speed and problem-solving, even for people with dementia.
It does not appear to matter how many workouts someone does a week or how long each of those workouts lasts, as long as they eventually amount to 52 hours. The research is the first to come up with a precise figure, which is the tipping point for reversing mental decline. The effect could be achieved in six months with two hours a week — though the new regime would then have to be maintained.
Joyce Gomes-Osman, of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and the paper’s senior author, said exercise revived the faculties impaired by old age. “Processing speed and executive function are among the first to go when you’re ageing,” she said. “This is evidence that you can literally turn back the clock on ageing by maintaining a regular exercise regime.”
Dr Gomes-Osman and colleagues pored over 4,600 studies before choosing the most reliable and crunching them together.
To their surprise the most important factor seemed to be not how often or how intensely people did their exercise, but how many hours they spent on it in total. The research is published in the journal Neurology: Clinical Practice.