HOW GOOD IS EXERCISE FOR SENIORS? LET ME COUNT THE WAYS!

A new review of reviews of the benefits of exercise tells us that exercise is as close as we're likely to get to a panacea.

Seniors exercising

Credit: Asahia/Wikimedia Commons

Writing in the Scandanavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, an international team of researchers reviewed all of the highest quality reviews and meta-analyses to date on the relationship between exercise and health in people in their sixties or older. The smallest group studied comprised 855 individuals, while the largest study tracked more than 400,000. The results are impressive:

If you're 60 or more and physically active, compared to your less-active peers, you're:

     22 percent less likely to die from any cause during a comparable time period

     25 to 40 percent less likely die from cardiovascular disease

     12 percent less likely to develop breast or prostate cancer

     29 to 39 percent less likely to fracture a bone

     50 percent less likely to become disabled (unable to perform basic activities              of daily living)

     26 to 38 percent less likely to experience cognitive decline or impairment

     32 to 42 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's Disease

     14 to 21 percent less likely to develop some other kind of dementia

     17 to 21 percent less likely to suffer from depression

      and significantly more likely to experience healthy aging, a better
      quality of life and more years spent in good mental and physical health.

To some extent, the range of outcomes comes from different studies using different criteria. However, for most of these relationships, more exercise produced better outcomes. The researchers conclude that any amount of physical activity has some benefit, but recommend at least 75 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous physical activity.

"Physical activity plays a key role in the 'compression of morbidity,'" the authors write, "decreasing the time spent in ill-health as people age and ensuring that an increase in life expectancy is also an increase in life-time spent in good health."

Not a bad payoff for investing at 10 to 15 minutes a day exercising.

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NEW EVIDENCE: EXERCISE BOOSTS YOUR BRAIN

We all know that exercise is good for us, and if done right can build muscles, physical strength and cardiovascular fitness. Now new evidence is emerging that physical exercise is good for our brains as well.

Publishing in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, a group of physicians and epidemiologists at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases detail a large study measuring and comparing the cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and brain volume of 2103 German women and men between the ages of 21 and 84. The researchers found that fitter participants had significantly greater brain volume than their less-fit peers.

Physical fitness may also boosts brain fitness
Photo credit: Michael (Mike) L. Baird

Interestingly, highly detailed magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of the participant's brains showed that the parts of the brain that benefitted most from increased fitness were not areas associated with movement or coordination, but instead areas involved in thinking and--seniors take note--memory. The effects on the hippocampus, crucial for memory, were especially strong in older participants.

"This is another piece of the puzzle showing physical activity and physical fitness is protective against aging-related cognitive decline," says Michael Joyner, a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist. He and two Mayo Clinic colleagues wrote an editorial to accompany the research report. They note that while previous research has linked exercise, physical fitness, blood flow to the brain, and cognitive functioning, this is the first research to show beneficial changes to the grey matter of the brain.
". . . these data are encouraging," says Clifford Jack Jr., a neuroradiologist at Mayo Clinic. "The findings regarding cardiorespiratory fitness and certain brain structures are unique."

You can read an earlier zerospinzone post about research linking exercise and brain connectivity here.

The new study's authors point out that while their cross-sectional research clearly showed that CRF and brain volume and structure are correlated, it can't prove cause and effect-- ". . . reverse causation (i.e., individuals with greater brain volumes have higher CRF) cannot be excluded," they write.

Even with that caveat, the researchers and the Mayo Clinic commentators conclude that these findings justify large-scale studies that follow participants over time to see if exercise and improved physical fitness actually help preserve grey matter in aging brains, or possibly even stimulate growth in regions of the brain such as the frontal lobes or hippocampus.

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You can access the full research paper and editorial commentary at this link. 

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EVEN LIGHT PHYSICAL ACTIVITY KEEPS YOUR BRAIN YOUNG

Here's the bad news: unless you're under 25, your brain is shrinking. The rate of brain loss is slow at first but speeds up gradually over the years. The brain volume of a typical 75 year old is about 15 percent less than it was at its peak. That gradual loss of brain volume goes hand in hand with the decline in memory and other cognitive functions commonly seen as people age.

 All you need is . . . to take a walk

Image source: Creative Commons

The good news is that even light physical activity--getting up, moving around, doing chores, taking a stroll, working standing rather than sitting--slows down brain shrinkage and ageing. A three-year study of more than 2300 men and women found that for every extra hour per day of light physical activity, people's brains measured more than a year younger, and the brains of people who clocked 10,000 or more steps a day were nearly two years younger than those of people who managed fewer than 5,000 steps a day.

The participants in this study were from the second and third generation of the famous Framingham Heart Study, a long term study centered in Framingham, Massachusetts, that has contributed greatly to our understanding of cardiovascular health and disease, diet and exercise. Activity was measured using accelerometers, and brain volume was tracked via MRIs.

These findings are encouraging to the millions of us--75 percent of Americans--who don't manage to meet the official physical activity guidelines of 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate exercise or 75 minutes per week of vigorous, aerobic exercise. We can protect our brains with less intense activities.

"Every additional hour of light intensity physical activity was associated with higher brain volumes, even among individuals not meeting current Physical Activity-Guidelines," says Nicole Spartano, a researcher at Boston University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "These data are consistent with the notion that potential benefits of physical activity on brain aging may accrue at a lower, more achievable level of intensity or volume."

The bottom line is that almost any kind or amount of daily exercise, even just an our or so of light physical activity, can give your brain the boost it needs to stay young and fit.

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DON'T JUST REMEMBER TO EXERCISE--EXERCISE TO REMEMBER!

We all know that exercise boosts physical fitness, but more and more research is showing that it also boosts mental fitness. The latest evidence appears in an article in MIT's Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, showing that six weeks of aerobic exercise boosted performance on a challenging memory task. Although the subjects in this study were 95 healthy young adults, the researchers expect to see similar results as they research the benefits of exercise for older adults. They hope to show that exercise can ward off age-related memory loss and even the ravages of dementia.

“At the other end of our lifespan, as we reach our senior years," says researcher Jennifer Heisz, at McMaster University, in Ontario, Canada, "we might expect to see even greater benefits in individuals with memory impairment brought on by conditions such as dementia.”

 Aerobic exercise--credit Wikipedia

The kind of exercise that produced these results is called interval training--short bouts of intense exercise followed by a short rest period, repeated over 20 minutes. The physical results were impressive--improved cardiovascular fitness, and an increase in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) a protein that helps brain cells to survive and thrive. But the mental benefits were equally important--a significant boost to high-interference memory, which lets us recall the correct word, name or event when there are many similar possibilities.

A growing body of research with mice and other animals also homes in on BDNF as a key player in translating physical exercise into better brain functioning. Remarkably, there are hints that this effect changes the expression of DNA in reproductive cells and can pass on cognitive benefits to offspring. You can read an excellent summary in TheScientist by clicking here.

So, if you remember to exercise, exercise will help you remember!

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CARDIAC FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH? EXERCISE 4 TO 5 TIMES A WEEK

Clearly, it's not for everyone, but new research shows that if you consistently exercise for 30 minutes or more four of five times per week, chances are your heart and major arteries will stay young and flexible as you age. While less frequent exercise still has many health benefits, it seems to take high frequency exercise to keep the biggest arteries in the body from stiffening with age.

 Cardio-box class; one form of heart-healthy exercise

Credit: Universidad Europea de Madrid

The new research, published in the Journal of Physiology, studied the lifelong exercise patterns of 102 men and women 60 years old or over. The researchers divided the participants into four groups--sedentary, casual exercisers, committed exercisers and master athletes, based on how frequently they had exercised over time. The results were clear--casual exercisers (two to three times per week) showed some heart and artery benefits, but it took four or more exercise sessions per week to be associated with preserved flexibility of the major vessels such as the carotid artery.

Human heart and major blood vessels

Credit: Bryan Brandenburg 

Of course, these cross-sectional findings alone can't pin down cause and effect, and the study was not designed to sort out other factors that might influence heart and arterial health, such as the type or intensity of exercise, diet or social and economic factors. However, they strongly suggest that consistent frequent exercise can help keep a person's heart and central arteries healthy and flexible into the later decades of life.

The researchers are using these preliminary findings as a guidepost towards exercise programs that could make a positive difference to people who don't have a lifelong history of frequent and consistent exercise. Benjamin Levine, at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at the University of Texas in Dallas, hopes not just to preserve heart health, but to turn back the ravages of time. "Our current work is focusing on two years of training in middle aged men and women, with and without risk factors for heart diseases, to see if we can reverse the ageing of a heart and blood vessels by using the right amount of exercise at the right time."

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TWENTY MINUTES A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY

Busy office workers who spent just 20 fewer minutes per day sitting at their desks maintained more muscle mass and were healthier at the end of a year than their less-active peers. It appears that even a little exercise can go a long way towards staying healthy.

Get up from that desk!

Credit: Phil Whitehouse/Jonund 

Researchers in Finland studied 133 office workers participated in the one-year study. One group was encouraged to set goals and develop personal strategies aimed at spending less time sitting both at work and away. At the start of the study, the participants averaged 9.4 seated hours per day, as measured by accelerometers. The men and women who had set goals initially reduced their sitting time by an average of 21 minutes per day. Even at the end of one year, they were still spending an average of 8 more minutes per day on their feet.

Yet even those few minutes a day up and moving around continued to make a difference. Blood glucose levels, cardiovascular risk and lower-body muscle mass were all better than the more sedentary participants.

Arto Pesola, the study's lead author, points out that the increased activity levels carried over to participants' homes as well, where they could benefit participants and their families. "Parents may think at first that spending time with their children is away from their own physical exercise. However, that way they can reduce sitting time and show a good example to their offspring about a physically active lifestyle. This is motivating, and as shown in the study, may be beneficial for health in the long run."

As I've detailed in several previous posts, this study adds to a growing body of research that convincingly shows multiple physical and psychological benefits from exercise.

 I don't know about you, but I'm getting up from the computer right now!

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HERE'S TO "WEEKEND WARRIORS"--THE EXERCISE YOU GET IS LIFE-SAVING

We all know that exercise is good for us. Decades of research has shown that even moderate physical activity--such as brisk walking--improves health and lengthens lives.

Based on this, both the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend at least 2 1/2 hours of moderate physical activity or 1 1/4 hours of intense exercise per week, spread throughout the week.

Biking and other exercises add miles--and years--to your life/Credit Connie Ma

Recognizing that many people can't build daily exercise into their schedules, but might hit the streets, the courts or the trails on weekends, a team of British researchers set out to see if even "weekend warriors" are healthier because of the the exercise they do.

The short answer is--you bet they are.

Writing in this week's edition of the prestigious medical journal, JAMA Internal Medicine, Gary O'Donovan and his colleagues conclude that men and women who got the recommended amount of exercise in just one or two outings per week were 40 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, 30 percent less likely to die from any cause, and nearly 20 percent less likely to die of cancer, compared to inactive adults.

The health benefits for weekend warriors were similar to those for people who exercised the same amount, but more regularly during the week.

"The weekend warrior and other physical activity patterns characterized by 1 or 2 sessions per week of moderate or vigorous-intensity physical activity may be sufficient to reduce risks for all-cause, CVD [cardiovascular disease], and cancer mortality regardless of adherence to prevailing physical activity guidelines," the researchers write.

Their study tracked almost 64,000 men and women 40 years and older over the course of 8 years, as part of a long-term English-Scottish health survey. Exercise patterns were determined from self reports while causes of death came from death certificates. The study's findings are particularly useful because of its length and the large number of participants.

Here's the take-home message from O'Donovan:

If you already are a weekend warrior, keep up the good work. If you are thinking of becoming more active, begin with a moderate-intensity exercise like brisk walking. Walking is associated with low risk of injury and it's important to set realistic goals that provide motivation and build confidence. I would recommend that middle-aged and older adults take part in at least 12 weeks of moderate-intensity exercise before introducing any vigorous-intensity exercise.

A new study, published in the prestigious British Medical Journal, analyzed 39 separate studies and concluded that both aerobic and resistance exercise can improve cognitive functioning in people over the age of 50. The exercise can be moderate, yet the cognitive gains are significant.

The bottom line--get up, get out, and exercise, even if you can only manage it once or twice a week.