Exercise Your Way To A Better Memory

January 3, 2020 / Thomas Cohn, MD

If you’re trying to exercise more in the new year, you may need to remind yourself to make time to exercise in the first few weeks before it becomes a habit, but according to new research, exercise may also help you remember daily tasks later in life.

According to research out of Norway, experts say that exercise and being physically fit may help sharpen our memory and reduce our dementia risk, even if we don’t really start exercising until later in life. There have been numerous studies on the link between being physically fit and staving off dementia risk, but no study has tackled the topic of when the participant begins their exercise regimen. For this study, researchers focused on whether getting physically fit at midlife or retirement age was too late to see any improvements.

Researchers used medical records of more than 30,000 individuals and tracked how their health changed over a 10-year period. They grouped individuals into three separate groups:

Those who remained in the lowest 20 percent of aerobic fitness for the entire study.
Those who moved into or out of that bottom 20 percent at any point during the 10-year period.
Those who remained outside of the bottom 20 percent for the entire 10-year period.

Memory and Exercise Results

After analyzing medical records, nursing home data and specialized memory clinics to determine which participants developed dementia during a 20-year follow up, researchers came to some interesting conclusions. They found that people who were fit throughout the entire study were almost 50 percent less likely to develop dementia than the least-fit men and women. Possibly more of note, those men and women who entered middle age out of shape but gained fitness showed a similar substantial reduction in their subsequent risk for dementia.

Researchers said that the study didn’t examine which types of exercise were being performed by those who gained fitness, so it appears that any physical exercise that helps to remain fit could be beneficial for your memory, even later in life. Another study on the topic found that individuals saw similar gains when they participated in exercise that raised their heart rate and boosted fitness, so while walking may be an okay form of exercise, walking with some interval training may provide more benefits.

“I tell people to add in some hills when they go for a walk,” said Jennifer Heisz, an associate professor at McMaster University who oversaw the second study, “or pick up the pace between streetlamps.”

So if you want to increase your chance of having a strong memory later in life, find some daily exercises that boost your physical fitness! And for help with any aspect of fitness or your health, don’t hesitate to reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.

The Overall Health Benefits Of Exercise

April 6, 2018 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Exercise isn’t just a way to stay in shape or calm inflammation, it also has enormous benefits for our overall health. In fact, new research shows that it doesn’t really matter whether your walk or run, so long as you are getting regular exercise.

According to new research, if you want to improve your overall health and reduce your risk of all-cause mortality, make sure you get some type of exercise on a regular basis. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s bi-weekly kickboxing classes or a 30-minute walk around the neighborhood with your dog, so long as you’re moving and working muscle groups.

The findings come on the heels of a study of more than 4,800 adults by the Journal of the American Heart Association. For their study, researchers sorted activity into two different categories – total minutes of activity per day and total minutes of intense or concentrated activity.

The Benefits Of Activity

You may assume that individuals who participated in more concentrated exercise would fare better than individuals who just walked or moved around, but that wasn’t really the case. The study found that neither type of activity had a significant edge over the other. According to researchers, individuals who clocked roughly 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day were significantly less likely to die from any cause than people who got none. Participants who exercised an hour or more each day fared even better.

“The key message based on the results presented is that total physical activity (i.e., of any bout duration) provides important health benefits,” the study authors wrote.

Cardio workouts not only help with your overall health, but they can provide some other benefits as well, like increased blood flow, enhanced memory and improved mood. The overall message from the study is that the more you move, the healthier you are likely to be.

Why Do We Exercise?

November 28, 2016December 28, 2016 / Thomas Cohn, MD

The most common prescription discussed in my practice is for physical therapy and exercise. It is not that I am an exercise nut, but a lot of pain comes from the lack of movement, strength and general conditioning. Restoring motion is necessary to function more properly, and the closer one gets to a level that mimics an uninjured body, the more normal the body will feel. The baseline state of the body is an incredibly balanced machine. If the normal balance and motion is impaired, then the rest of the body strains to compensate. The easiest state for the body is when everything moves in the way it was meant in its original design.

Restoring and maintaining function as close to normal levels is the goal of most of medicine. Today, many people look for the shortcut to get to a normal level. A quick fix just sounds good, whether it is a pill or a surgery. Unfortunately, the simple solution is often not an answer but just a cover-up. Usually, it takes a lot of work to correct a problem, and often only a partial solution is found. Not all damage to the body can be corrected. Changes in the body related to aging, for example, may be permanent.

Exercise May Be Best

The best solutions for the body are often the simplest. The more we change, the more we have to compensate. If it is not broken, do not fix it. An over riding principle is to keep it simple. All this points to working with our bodies and teaching them once again to function normally.

The reason why I harp on activity is because it is the one thing that has been proven scientifically, in study after study that will work. It is one of the cheapest investments overall and when you actually do the right stuff to help the body heal and restore function, it works. When you skip parts, it’s frustrating and only gives partial results. Exercise may not be the only part of the solution, but it is one of the most important aspects.

Exercise for the body requires at least three components of activities to be successful. The first aspect is stretching and maintaining range of motion of the body. If the body does not move in its full capacity, muscles that do not normally do an action must step in and help compensate. These muscles that are helpers to restore balance in the body often need training and everything tends to tighten. Learning to actively stretch muscles and ligaments in an area keeps things moving correctly, and if they are not to tight, they do not hurt. Movement done correctly may hurt, but should not be causing damage to the structure, and as normal motion returns, pain lessens. Ongoing exercise programs with stretching may include activities like yoga or the martial arts.

Strength Training Also Key

Once motion is obtained, one must also have strength in the muscles. Most people think of body builders when they discuss strength. More realistic is having the muscles in the injured area perform with their normal power and what is expected in the un-injured state. There are many muscles in the body, and often we need to learn special activities to build up strength in them. Core body strengthening of the muscles in the abdomen, trunk, hips, pelvis and spine are necessary for low back injuries. This requires a number of very different exercises to engage the appropriate muscles to be effective. This type of exercise needs to be taught to people usually by a physical therapist to learn correct techniques. Once learned, they often do not require any amount of special equipment, but they do require diligence. Pilates is an excellent type of exercise to work on core strengthening. Most physicians are also recommending a general strengthening program for the whole body and large muscle groups as this has been shown to reduce the effects of aging, from joint deterioration to improved cardiac and pulmonary health.

The last component of exercise is general aerobic conditioning. This helps maintain cardiovascular health, but also allows the body to improve its overall endurance. Having the ability to perform an activity for a prolonged period of time is the goal of general aerobic conditioning. It gives the body the ability to stand or walk for a long distance, or just allows the body to make it through the day doing the necessary activities. Aerobic conditioning starts with things as simple as walking and then moves to fast walking, and then to more strenuous pursuits like swimming, biking, or running. More intense activity improves the cardiovascular system, improves the body’s immunity, and increases endorphins – the body’s own painkillers. Performing aerobic exercise at least three times a week for 30 minutes is the general medical recommendation.

Exercise that includes all three components; stretching, strengthening and aerobic conditioning does actually work. Chronic pain is usually more of a learned signal in the body that is indicating one is performing motions in the past that caused harm. Exercise when done correctly, returns the body to a more normal pattern of behavior, and reduces stresses on previously damaged components. Pain may not disappear, but it will usually be much diminished as function and overall ability improves. One needs to concentrate on all the things that one can do and not dwell on the one’s past glories. We can always move forward, but we cannot erase our past.