Brain health is boosted by small lifestyle changes that could prevent the development of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's, a new study has found.
Everyone knows that exercise is good for you, but researchers say little is known about exactly how and where physical activity affects our brains.
Scientists have discovered that walking just 15 minutes a day or taking the stairs may have a "substantial" positive effect on the brain. Indeed, a bit of movement could counteract the development of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers, along with the loss of brain matter that happens when we get older.
"With our results, we want to provide a further impetus to become more physically active – to promote brain health and prevent neurodegenerative diseases," said the study's lead author, neuroscientist Fabienne Fox. "Even modest physical activity can help. Thus, it's just a small effort – but with a big impact."
Researchers noted how people's brain volumes increased with physical activity. They found the more active participants were, the greater the effect.
The team saw the largest and "almost sudden" volume increase in brain matter when they compared inactive to only moderately physically active participants – which was particularly noticeable in people aged over 70.
"Generally, we can say that the higher and more intense the physical activity, the larger the brain regions were, either with regard to volume or cortical thickness," said Dr Fox.
The study, which was published in Neurology, used data from the Rhineland Study, a large-scale population-based study conducted by DZNE (the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases).
They analysed physical activity data from 2,550 volunteers aged 30 to 94 years, as well as brain images obtained by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
"Our study results indicate that even small behavioural changes, such as walking 15 minutes a day or taking the stairs instead of the elevator, may have a substantial positive effect on the brain and potentially counteract age-related loss of brain matter and the development of neurodegenerative diseases," said Dr Ahmad Aziz from the DZNE.
"In particular, older adults can already profit from modest increases of low intensity physical activity."
The analysis also showed a large overlap between genes affected by exercise and those that are impacted by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or Huntington's disease.
This could offer a potential explanation for why physical activity has a neuroprotective effect, the research team concluded.
"With our study, we were able to characterise brain regions that benefit from physical activity to an unprecedented level of detail," said Dr Aziz. "We hope our results will provide important leads for further research."
They found that young and somewhat athletic subjects who usually partook in moderate to intense exercise also had relatively high brain volumes. However, in even more active subjects, these brain regions were slightly larger, although the beneficial effects tended to level off at high levels of physical activity.
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