How to Improve Memory and Brain Health

In recent times so much emphasis has been laid on staying healthy that it seems to be quite a sought after affair. Who doesn't want to stay active and healthy? But when it comes to older adults it could well be the need of the hour rather than a wishful desire. Staying active ensures not only a healthy body but a healthy brain also.

Exercise is known to be a good antidote of depression. It releases chemicals in the brain called endorphins, which boosts your mood. Studies have shown that exercise can make you happier, build stamina, and boost self-esteem.

In the elderly, the memory loss is associated with the shrinkage of a part of the brain, known as the hippocampus. Hippocampus is the part of the brain that assists in forming memories. Recent studies show that regular aerobic exercise may be helpful in slowing or even reversing the age-related memory loss in older adults. This happens as a result of an increase in the size of hippocampus resulting from exercise.

Researchers found that one year of moderate aerobic exercise, like walking, increased the volume of the hippocampus by almost 2%, which resulted in an effective reversal of the age-related shrinkage of the hippocampus by one to two years.

The shrinkage of the hippocampus is considered as inevitable in elderly age by the experts, but the brain is believed to be modifiable even at this stage by them. They are sure that even one year of moderate exercise can increase the size of the hippocampus.

Exercise and the Brain

In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers randomly chose 120 adults between the ages of 55 and 80 into one of two groups. One group followed an aerobic exercise program of walking around a track for 40 minutes a day, three days a week; the other group was assigned limited exercise restricted to stretching and toning exercises.

A year later the brain scans taken at the start of the study and those taken after a year showed that the right and left sides of the hippocampus increased by 2.12% and 1.97%, respectively, in the aerobic exercise group. However, on studying brain scans it was found that the right and left sides of the hippocampus decreased in volume in the other group by 1.40% and 1.43%, respectively.

Some other tests of spatial memory function also showed marked improvements in the aerobic exercise group associated with this increase in hippocampus volume. The researchers also found increases in several markers related to brain health, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which resulted in a corresponding increase with the increase in hippocampus volume.

The results of this case study are particularly interesting in the sense that they suggest that even modest amounts of exercise by older adults can lead to substantial improvements in memory and brain health. Such improvements can have important implications for the health of the elderly and the ever-expanding population of older adults worldwide."