Buff and Brainy

http://sciencenews.org/articles/20060225/bob10.asp

Thousands of people go to the gym every day to lose weight, feel healthier, or tone up their muscles, but few people know that exercising is not just to improve those three things. Studies have also shown that working out significantly buffs up your brain. These studies have proved that fitness helps healthy brains to function at their optimal levels. Exercising helps nerve cells multiply, strenghten their connections, and protect them from harm. This finding could be a form of treatment for disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and spinal cord injuries.

After doing various tests on mice, researchers concluded that the reason the brain is stimulated while doing exercise is brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. Researchers describe BDNF as a protein that directs the brain, along with other neural health, and promoting their chemicals to spring into action. When exercise occurs, the amount of BDNF increases, causing the brain to be stimulated. Carl Cotman, a neuroscientist at UC Irvine describes BDNF saying, "I think of BDNF as a brain fertilizer. BDNF makes the cells grow like crazy."

In order to test to see if exercising did in fact increase brain productivity, researchers separated a number of mice into two separate cages; one of which had running wheels for the mice and one of which had no wheels. During a period of several weeks, the researchers kept track of the activity of the active mice. The mice ran an average of 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) per night. The mice were then placed in a popular testing place known as the Morris Water Maze. The mice swam at a similar speed, however the mice that were active over the several week period found the platform (the end of the maze) much faster than the sedentary mice.

Researchers have also dissected the brains of the two groups of mice and found that the mice who exercised had nearly twice the amount of brain neurons as the sedentary mice.

Although the evidence that exercising is good for the brain is increasing, the amount of people exercising in the United States is plummeting. In a recent survey taken by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 20% of people 18 and older exercise for less than 10 minutes a week. This lack of exercise not only increases the chance of heart attacks and other health problems, it also effects the health of the brains in the United States. Dr. David Albeck of the University of Colorado said, "It's never too late to start working out." No matter what the age, improvement is made in memory and learning when exercise is work into your schedule. Michael Zigmond, of the University of Pittsburgh concludes by saying, "If somebody were to stop me in the street and ask me what to do, I wouldn't have any problem telling them to exercise. There are lots of reasons to exercise, and virtually no reason not to."

This article was very interesting because when people exercise, they usually exercise to improve their outward appearance or to improve their cardiovascular health. Although it is not generally recognized as a common benefit to working out regularly, evidence certainly supports the theory that exercise can improve your mental health as well as "buffing the brain." It will also be interesting to see if this can further help the prevention of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.