When you put them together;
you have a kingdom."
- Jack LaLanne
A firm resolve does not know how to weaken or as they said in the movie…
Once you get it up, keep it up!
Exercise is the single most powerful tool available to optimize brain function. That is the message from this book. Everybody knows that exercise creates a fit body, but what many forget is that the brain is part of the body too. Modern science has been able to learn much about how the brain works, and has even tracked neurogenesis (i.e. new cell growth) in the brain in response to exercise. The old saying, "Once your brain cells die, they can’t grow back," is a myth.
This book has chapters about the effect of exercise on learning, stress, anxiety, depression, ADHD, addiction, hormonal changes and aging. The author explains how exercise helps in each condition. Exercise is truly a miracle drug, and you can bet the drug companies are working hard to capture some of its benefits in a pill. But the body's (and brain's) reaction to exercise is so complex, multifaceted and exquisitely balanced as to make it certain to never be fully captured within a pill.
It should be no surprise that humans respond positively to exercise. We're descendants of hunter-gatherers who were optimized over thousands of years by evolution to walk and run around the equivalent of many miles per day (i.e. the couch potato of the caveman era died young).
I've decided to include in this review more than the usual amount of excerpts from the book for my future reference. I may need this info to motivate myself in the future.
This book's focus is exercise, but the author slips a few comments in about nutrition that caught my eye:
The following quote is about the relationship between exercise and dementia.
This book has chapters about the effect of exercise on learning, stress, anxiety, depression, ADHD, addiction, hormonal changes and aging. The author explains how exercise helps in each condition. Exercise is truly a miracle drug, and you can bet the drug companies are working hard to capture some of its benefits in a pill. But the body's (and brain's) reaction to exercise is so complex, multifaceted and exquisitely balanced as to make it certain to never be fully captured within a pill.
It should be no surprise that humans respond positively to exercise. We're descendants of hunter-gatherers who were optimized over thousands of years by evolution to walk and run around the equivalent of many miles per day (i.e. the couch potato of the caveman era died young).
I've decided to include in this review more than the usual amount of excerpts from the book for my future reference. I may need this info to motivate myself in the future.
This book's focus is exercise, but the author slips a few comments in about nutrition that caught my eye:
Low-carb diets may help you lose weight, but they're not good for your brain. Whole grains have complex carbohydrates that supply a steady flow of energy rather than the spike and crash of simple sugars, and they're necessary to transport amino acids such as tryptophan into the brain.Because of my age I have particular interest in quotations from the book regarding issues related to aging. The following is an extended except from the book (pages 233-237) where the author summarizes the ways in which exercise mitigates the human aging process.
The brain is made up of more than 50 percent fat, so fats are important too, as long as they're the right kind. Trans fat, animal fat, and hydrogenated oils gum up the works, but the omega-3s found in fish are enormously beneficial. Population studies have shown that countries in which people eat a lot of fish have lower incidence of bipolar disorder. And some people use omega-3s as a stand-alone treatment for mood disorders and ADHD. One study showed that people who eat fish once a week slow the yearly rate of cognitive decline by 10 percent. The Framingham Heart Study followed nine hundred people for nine years and found that those who ate three meals with fish oil per week were half as likely to develop dementia. Omega-3s lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and neuronal inflammation, and they elevate the immune response and BDNF levels.
THE LIFE LISTI don't think it's necessary to understand what all those terms mean, but if they bother you it's possible to Google them in most cases.
Much of the public discourse on aging focuses on baby boomers becoming senior citizens and the belief that their vast numbers will take an unprecedented toll on the health care system, in the form of dementia and other costly health problems. But I don’t believe we’re stuck with this picture of doom and gloom. Despite my generation’s familiarity with fast food and pay per view, we also came of age with Kenneth Cooper’s revolutionary concept of aerobics. Unlike previous generations, we recognized how a healthy heart and healthy lungs stave off disease, and we know our way around the gym. My mother just happened to have the good habit of walking, and even Harold, the eighty-year-old skier from Michigan, isn’t terribly well versed in matters of health and fitness. He once asked the trainer June Smedley what was causing a muscle twitch, and when she suggested it might be dehydration, he scoffed, saying, “I drink lots of fluid--coffee, milk and wine!”
I have faith that when people come to recognize how their lifestyle can improve their health span--living better, not simply longer--they will, at the very least, be more inclined to stay active. And when they come to accept that exercise is as important for the brain as it is for the heart, they’ll commit to it. Here’s how exercise keeps you going:
1. It strengthens the cardiovascular system. A strong heart and lungs reduce resting blood pressure. The result is less strain on the vessels in the body and the brain. There are a number of mechanisms at work here. First, contracting muscles during exercise releases growth factors such as VEGF and fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2). Aside from their role in helping neurons bind and promoting neurogenesis, they trigger a molecular chain reaction that produces endothelial cells, which make up the inner lining of blood vessels and thus are important for building new ones. These inroads expand the vascular network, bringing each area of the brain that much closer to a lifeline and creating redundant circulation routes that protect against future blockages. Second, exercise introduces more nitric oxide, a gas that widens the vessels’ passageways to boost blood volume. Third, the increased blood flow during moderate to intense activity reduces hardening of the brain arteries. Finally, exercise can to some extent counteract vascular damage. Stroke victims and even Alzheimer’s patients who participate in aerobic exercise improve their scores on cognitive tests. Starting when you’re young is best, but it’s never too late.
2. It regulates fuel. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute conducted a nine-year study of 1,173 people over age seventy-five. None of them had diabetes, but those with high glucose levels were 77 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer’.
As we age, insulin levels drop; and glucose has a harder time getting into the cells to fuel them. Then glucose can skyrocket, which creates waste products in the cells--such as free radicals--and damages blood vessels, putting us at risk for stroke and Alzheimer’s. When everything is balanced, insulin works against the buildup of amyloid plaque, but too much encourages the buildup, as well as inflammation, damaging surrounding neurons.
Exercise increases levels of insullin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which regulates insulin in the body and improves synaptic plasticity in the brain. By drawing down surplus fuel, exercise also bolsters our supply of BDNF, which is reduced by high glucose.
3. It reduces obesity. Aside from wreaking havoc on the cardiovascular and metabolic systems, body fat has its own nasty effects on the brain. The CDC estimates that 73 percent of Americans over sixty-five are overweight, and given the potential problems obesity can lead to--from cardiovascular disease to diabetes--the agency is right in declaring it a pandemic. Simply being overweight doubles the chances of developing dementia, and if we factor in high blood pressure and high cholesterol--symptoms that often come along with obesity--the risk increases sixfold. When people retire, they figure they deserve a break after working their whole lives, and they start piling on the food. but what they don’t realize is that having dessert with every meal is no treat. Exercise, naturally, counteracts obesity on two fronts: it burns calories, and it reduces appetite.
4. It elevates your stress threshold. Exercise combats the corrosive effects of too much cortisol, a product of chronic stress that can bring on depression and dementia. It also bolsters neurons against excess glucose, free radicals, and the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, all necessary, but they can damage cells if left unchecked. Waste accumulates and junks up the cellular machinery, and it starts turning out dangerous products--damaged proteins and broken fragments of DNA that trigger that latent and ultimately inevitable process of cell death that defines aging. Exercise makes proteins that fix the damage and delay the process.
5. It lifts your mood. More neurotransmitters, neurotrophins, and connectivity shore up the hippocampus against the atrophy associated with depression and anxiety. And a number of studies have shown that keeping our mood up reduces our chances of developing dementia. The evidence applies not only to clinical depression but also to general attitude. Staying mobile also allows us to stay involved, keep up with people, and make new friends; social connections are important in elevating and sustaining mood.
6. It boosts in immune system. Stress and age depress the immune response, and exercise strengthens it directly in two important ways. First, even moderate activity levels rally the immune system’s antibodies and lymphocytes, which you probably know as T cells. Antibodies attack bacterial and viral infections, and having more T cells make the body more alert to the development of conditions such a s cancer. Population studies bear this out: The most consistent risk factor for cancer is lack of activity. Those who are physically active, for instance, have a 50 percent lower chance of developing colon cancer.
Second, part of the immune system’s job is to activate cells that fix damaged tissue. When it’s out of whack, these damaged spots fester, and you’re left with chronic inflammation. This is why, if you’re over fifty, your blood will be tested for C-reactive proteins as part of your standard physical. These proteins are a sign of chronic Alzheimer’s. Exercise brings the immune system back into equilibrium so it can sop inflammation and combat disease.
7. It fortifies your bones. Osteoporosis doesn’t have much to do with the brain, but it’s important to mention because you need a strong carriage to continue exercising as you age, and it is a largely preventable disease.
Osteoporosis afflicts twenty million women and two million men in this country. More women every year die from hip fractures--a vulnerability of osteoporosis--than from breast cancer. Women reach peak bone mass at around thirty, and after that they lose about 1 percent a year until menopause, when the pace doubles. The result is that by age sixty, about 30 percent of a woman’s bone mass has disappeared. Unless, that is, she takes calcium and vitamin D (which comes free with ten minutes of morning sun a day) and does some form of exercise or strength training to stress the bones. Walking doesn’t quite do the job--save that for later in life. But as a young adult, weight training or any sport that involves running or jumping will counteract the natural loss. the degree to which you can prevent the loss is impressive: one study found that women can double their leg strength in just a few months of weight training. Even women in their nineties can improve their strength and prevent this heartbreaking disease.
8. It boosts motivation. The road to successful aging really begins with desire, because without the desire to stay engaged and active ad alive, people quickly fall into the death trap of being sedentary and solitary. One of the problems of getting older is the lack of challenges, but with exercise we can continually improve and push ourselves. Exercise counteracts the natural decline of dopamine, the key neurotransmitter in the motivation and motor systems. When you move, you’re inherently boosting motivation by strengthening the connections between dopamine neurons, while at the same time guarding against Parkinson’s. This really underscores the idea that if you’re not busy living, your body will be busy dying. It’s important to have plans and goals and appointments, and this is why sports such as golf and tennis are great. They require constant self-monitoring and the motivation to improve.
9. It fosters neuroplasticity. The best way to guard against neurodegenerative diseases is to build a strong brain. Aerobic exercise accomplishes this by strengthening connections between your brain cells, creating more synapses to expand the web of connections, and spurring newly born stem cells to divide and become functional neurons in the hippocampus. Moving the body keeps the brain growing by elevating the supply of neurotrophic factors necessary for neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, which should otherwise naturally diminish with age. Contracting your muscles releases factors such as VEGF, FGF-2, and IGF-1 that make their way from the body into the brain and aid in the process. All these structural changes improve your brain’s ability to learn and remember, execute higher thought processes, and manage your emotions. The more robust the connections, the better prepared your brain will be to handle and damage it might experience.
The following quote is about the relationship between exercise and dementia.
Population studies support the evidence that exercise holds off dementia. In one about 1500 people from Finland originally surveyed in the 1970s and again 21 years later when they were between 65 and 79 years old. Those who had exercised at least twice a week were 50% less likely to have dementia. What's particularly interesting is that the relationship between regular activity and the onset of dementia was even more pronounced among those carrying the ApoE4 gene. The researchers suggest that one explanation might be that their brains neuro-protective systems are naturally compromised by the gene variant making life style particularly important. The bottom line ... is that all we can do at the present time is modify the environmental factors to get the best out of the whatever genes we have.My only disappointment with the book is that it doesn't say that writing long book reviews is good for the brain.
Note: Review was extracted with permission from Goodreads.com courtesy of Clif Hostetler written on January 4th 2015.
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This is my landmark research for the year. At the same time I am n=1 in this experiment. I thought of sending to the selected few (those names at the bottom of the posting) but as you can see in the message, I had an External Intervention for "more". So kindly share if you think this is useful.
Already I got USA, France, Germany and UK reading it.
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@chedetofficial @drwanazizah @DrDzul @GobindSinghDeo @maszlee @SyedSaddiq @ishsal @elsDines @traxxfmofficial #traxxfm I had plenty of time researching on these matters. Mark my words, these are profound knowledge. https://sharudinjamal.blogspot.com/2019/07/13719-road-to-health-and-happiness.html …
