Aerobic excercise improves thinking skills thanks to oxygen influx to brain
Yet another reason to make it to the gym according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required) on Art Kramer, a University of Illinois researcher, who's led a groundbreaking study on the effect of excercise on the brain to be published in the near future.
Mr. Kramer's study confirms what other research has pointed to: cardiovascular training that pumps more oxygen to the brain, as opposed to anaerobic exercise such as weight training that builds muscle tissue through oxygen depletion, improves brain function.
The damaging effects of age on the brain have long been known -- between 30 and 90 we lose 15% of the cerebral cortex, the area of the brain that controls conscious thought. But Mr. Kramer's new research, sponsored by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, makes a compelling case for the link between mental and physical agility....
So just how does aerobic exercise protect our intellect? The answer lies in oxygen. When people say they getting "rusty" with age, they're not too far from the truth. Just as oxygen exposure causes metal to rust, so it slowly damages the body's tissue through a buildup of particles called "free radicals." But ironically, getting more oxygen to the brain appears to fight the ravages of oxygen on brain tissue by stimulating the production of proteins called "brain-derived neurotropic factor," which reduce free-radical damage. Aerobic exercise increases the efficiency of oxygen intake by the body. Specifically, strong, sustained cardiovascular workouts -- exercise that raises the heart rate -- increases blood circulation through the body, pumping more oxygenated blood to the brain. An added bonus is that aerobic exercise is also believed to stimulate production of new neurons -- the functional units of the nervous system -- increasing the number of brain cells. "[Aerobic exercise] certainly protects our intelligence, and may even improve it," Mr. Kramer says.