Exercise helps us in so many countless and precious ways that it’s difficult to say in what cases would exercise NOT be recommended. In fact, there is not one thing I can think of that would prompt a doctor to persuade or recommend anyone to not exercise. Some form of exercise, no matter what your situation, is always recommended, and it’s no exception for those that are getting up there in years, to help prevent and slow the formation of alzheimers, the disease where your memory begins to slip away little by little.
Many have described alzheimers, whether early onset of typically set on in the later years, as a living hell because there are moments of complete clarity and then moments of clouded memories and then finally, complete confusion. Alzheimers can happen to the best, most powerful and intelligent men and women, and once it is set in motion there is little that can currently be medically done to stop it or even slow it significantly. However, that best friend of ours, exercise may have benefits beyond anything anyone thought when it comes to alzheimers disease.
When the brain is affected by alzheimers you see, it begins to atrophy (shrink), which results in key memory mechanisms being compromised and then finally the ultimate, which is complete and total loss of all your most precious and treasured memories. Imagine, being a family member to someone that has this, it’s not easy, and it’s a reason that there is major research being poured into the prevention and treatment of the mental disease.
Tests so far on patients with early term alzheimers disease actually showed less brain atrophy than their counterparts also in the study and also with alzheimers in early stages, who were not physically fit - as in did not exercise, or did not exercise regularly enough to make them physically fit by today’s standards. Since the rate of brain shrinkage is double in alzheimers patients what it is in people with normal, undiseased brains, that means that the reduction in shrinkage from exercise is significant - more than significant actually!
It is important to note however, that the fit subjects did not perform better on mental tests than the non-fit ones, so there is still some work to be done on exactly how exercise works to help possibly slow alzheimers. Nonetheless the fact that it shows so far to help prevent the shrinkage of the brain matter that comes with the disease is very exciting and may lead to several new studies and developments in the world of alzheimers and brain research. It’s a significant finding!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Health and Fitness News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.