Posts Tagged ‘brain’

Exercise Builds Better Brains

January 21st, 2010

I knew it!!!

I knew there was a reason my Health Habits readers are so much smarter than the average person on the street.

It turns out that all of that exercise you do improves brain health and actually promotes the growth of new brain cells.

The Research

In a new study (published here), researchers found that voluntary running caused lab mice to grow new brain cells in the region of the brain (hippocampus) associated with memory and spatial navigation.

The 105-day study included two groups of mice. One group was allowed unlimited access to an exercise wheel and ran an average of more than 20 km (12 miles) a day. The other group of mice weren’t allowed to exercise.

Tests showed that the mice in the exercise group were better able to distinguish between memories of similar things. This is likely due to the additional brain cells generated by exercise, the researchers said.

“Keeping similar memories distinct is an important part of having a good memory,” said study senior author Timothy Bussey of Cambridge University. “It is this aspect of memory that is improved by exercise, our study shows.

The human equivalent might be remembering which car parking space you have used on two different days in the previous week. It becomes difficult to distinguish memories when events are similar.”

New brain cells…that has to be good.

But wait,  it gets even better.

It’s not just the physical exercise that you do.

Another group of brain researchers believe that it’s a combination of increased blood flow (via exercise therapy) and increased neural activity (problem solving, learning new tasks, reading Health Habits, etc…) that results in both the creation and retention of new brain cells at any age.

So, when you go online to research how to get healthy & fit, you’re pushing your brain to grow & keep new brain cells.

But wait, it can get even better than that.

Supplementing your diet with Omega 3 fatty acids has been shown to improve the cellular function of your brain cells.

Conclusion

  • Physical Exercise = New Brain Cells
  • Mental Exercise = Retention of those New Brain Cells (the use it or lose it theory)
  • Omega 3 fatty acids via fish oils = Better Functioning Brain Cells

So, the next time some non-exercising, non-thinking, non-fish oil slurping mouth breather tells you how smart you are, you can tell them that it’s all due to Health Habits.

You’re welcome

.

If you like what you see here, click here for updates

.

Related Posts

Reference

Popularity: 2% [?]

2 comments »

Posted in Diet/Nutrition, Exercise, I Wanna Be Healthy, Mental/Emotional, Research, fitness, fitness - research, health, nutrition

Tags:

Your Anti-Senility Prescription

December 31st, 2008

senility

This post is for everyone out there with a loved one over the age of 50.

.New research shows that our lifestyle choices (nutrition and physical activity) have a powerful effect on age related cognitive health.

Translation: Senility is mostly preventable with diet and exercise.

And guess what?

The same lifestyle choices that have created an epidemic of obesity in the Western world are also responsible for much of the dementia in today’s senior citizens.

Here’s the science:

Study #1

Researchers from the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain found that maintaining steady blood sugar levels, even in the absence of disease (diabetes, metabolic syndrome) is an important strategy for preserving cognitive health.

For many of us, senior moments are a normal part of aging. Such lapses in memory, according to this new research, can be blamed, on rising blood glucose levels as we age.

Whether through physical exercise, diet or drugs, our research suggests that improving glucose metabolism could help some of us avert the cognitive slide that occurs in many of us as we age,” reported lead investigator Scott A. Small, M.D.

Although it is widely known that the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease cause damage to the hippocampus, the area of the brain essential for memory and learning, studies have suggested that it is also vulnerable to normal aging.

Until now, the underlying causes of age-related hippocampal dysfunction have remained largely unknown.

In previous studies, Dr. Small et al had discovered that decreasing brain function in the dentate gyrus region of the hippocampus is the main contributor of normal age related cognitive decline.

In this new study, researchers used medical imaging devices to “help us better understand the basic mechanisms behind hippocampal dysfunction in the aged.”

Their research looked at measures that typically change during aging, like:

  • rising blood sugar,
  • body mass index,
  • cholesterol and
  • insulin levels.

The research found that decreasing activity in the dentate gyrus only correlated with levels of blood glucose.

“Showing for the first time that blood glucose selectively targets the dentate gyrus is not only our most conclusive finding, but it is the most important for ‘normal’ aging- that is hippocampal dysfunction that occurs in the absence of any disease states. There have been many proposed reasons for age-related hippocampal decline; this new study suggests that we may now know one of them,” said Dr. Small.

Conclusion

Control your blood sugar and prevent senility

How?

Read this and this and this and this.

.

Study #2

In this study, researchers found that as we age, a slow, chronic starvation of the brain appears to be one of the major triggers of Alzheimer’s disease.

When the brain doesn’t get enough glucose, “a process is launched that ultimately produces the sticky clumps of protein that appear to be a cause of Alzheimer’s”. During this process, a key brain protein (eIF2alpha) increases the production of an enzyme which, in turn, flips a switch that produces the sticky clumps of protein.

And what causes this reduction in blood glucose to the brain?

Cardiovascular Disease

And how do we prevent cardiovascular disease?

But don’t take my word for it.

“This finding is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s,” said Vassar, a professor of cell and molecular biology at the Feinberg School.

A simple preventive strategy people can follow to improve blood flow to the brain is getting exercise, reducing cholesterol and managing hypertension.

“If people start early enough, maybe they can dodge the bullet,” Vassar said.

For people who already have symptoms, vasodilators, which increase blood flow, may help the delivery of oxygen and glucose to the brain. It also is possible that drugs could be designed to block the eIF2alpha protein that begins the formation of the protein clumps, known as amyloid plaques.

.

If you like what you see here, click here for updates or Share this Post with the rest of the world.

.

Related Posts


References

  1. EurekAlert
  2. EurekAlert

Popularity: 1% [?]

8 comments »

Posted in Diet/Nutrition, Exercise, Research, health

Tags:

Supercharge Your Brain On A Low Carb Diet

October 20th, 2008

It is generally believed that our brains need sugar to operate at peak efficiency.

This argument has been one of the strongest indictments of low carb diets such as the Atkins Diet.

It may also be totally false.

In fact, according to a new study published in the October 2008 edition of The FASEB Journal, your brain, just like your muscles, works harder when fueled by lactate instead of glucose.

The Study

In this study, researchers subjected their volunteers to strenuous exercise while looking at the blood running to and from their brains.

Specifically, they were trying to see what happened to the large amounts of lactate that are produced in the body as a by-product of exercise.

Analyzing the blood entering and exiting the brain, the researchers found that “the brain was not storing the lactate which had come from the muscles during exercise, but rather using it as fuel”.

In fact, the brain helped to clear lactate from the body, shifting the supply of glucose towards the hard working muscles.

In addition, the data also showed that brain activity increased significantly during the study.

The brain was thriving on the diet of lactate.

From an evolutionary perspective, this isn’t surprising.

If our prehistoric ancestors had not been able to think and react while evading four legged predators, they might literally have lost their heads.

Being able to use lactate as “brain food” allowed our ancestors to survive and evolve.

.

If you like what you see here, click here for updates or Share this Post with the rest of the world.

.

Related Posts

Popularity: 1% [?]

No comments »

Posted in Diet/Nutrition, Research, health

Tags:

Binge Eating: Is Your Brain Making You Fat?

October 10th, 2008

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that “overeating throws critical portions of the brain out of whack, leading to a malfunctioning hypothalamus, metabolic inflammation, insulin resistance, leptin resistance, obesity and type 2 diabetes”.

The study, published in the October 3 issue of Cell, attempts to expand on previous research which showed that over-nutrition is associated with chronic inflammation in metabolic tissues.

Specifically, they wanted to see whether metabolic inflammation compromises the brain’s metabolic regulatory systems and therefore promotes over-nutrition associated diseases.

Translation:

They wanted to see if a trip to the “All You Can Eat Buffet” would mess with your brain, causing an impaired metabolism and increased obesity.

The Results:

A trip to the “All You Can Eat Buffet” will mess with your brain, causing an impaired metabolism and increased obesity.

The Details:

There is a substance in your brain called IKKβ/NF-κB.

IKKβ/NF-κB is a mediator of metabolic inflammation. Most of the time, it just sits there, inactive.

However, a single session of overeating activates the IKKβ/NF-κB found in your hypothalamus.

Once activated, the IKKβ/NF-κB increases inflammation in your metabolic pathways and interrupts the normal signaling of the obesity regulation hormones, leptin and insulin.

When this happens over and over and over again, your body becomes resistant to insulin and leptin.

And you become fat.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the increased obesity leads to even more inflammation. Which leads to more leptin / insulin resistance and so on and so on.

This all results in quite the little vicious circle of inflammation, hormone resistance and obesity.

Conclusion

The researchers have concluded that “their findings could lead to treatments that might stop this cycle before it gets started”.

If they can inhibit the IKKβ/NF-κB pathway in the hypothalamus, they may be able to eliminate the inflammatory response to over-eating and the resultant hormone resistance and obesity.

They also noted that “if realized, such a strategy would likely offer a safe approach given that the critical pathway appears to be unnecessary in the hypothalamus under normal circumstances.”

APPEARS TO BE UNNECESSARY

Hmmmm, I don’t know about you, but being told that part of my hypothalamus “appears to be unnecessary” doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

Instead, I think that I will just skip that second trip to the trough…errr…buffet table and avoid the entire problem altogether.

.

If you like what you see here, click here for updates or Share this Post with the rest of the world.

.

Related Posts

.

References:

EurekaAlert

Cell

Popularity: 2% [?]

No comments »

Posted in Diet/Nutrition, Research, health

Tags:

Pregnant Mothers intake of Omega 3 key to Babies Big Brains

May 29th, 2008

In a study led by Harvard Dr. Emily Oken, researchers concluded that three-year-olds whose mothers ate more fish while pregnant with them score better on several tests of cognitive function than their peers whose mothers avoided seafood. Fish consumption of ≤2 servings/week was not associated with a benefit.

Conversely, the study also found that the amount of mercury in a woman’s body rose with the amount of fish she had consumed. Children that were exposed to these higher levels of mercury performed worse on the same cognitive tests.

WHAT?

Sounds like a bit a classic catch-22.

Eat fish and your kids will grow up to be a super genius.

OR

Eat fish, expose your child to mercury, and he/she will grow up to be something less than a super genius.

So what are we supposed to do with this scientific breakthrough?

Based on their findings, the researchers say that it’s possible that eating Omega 3 fish could produce greater brain benefits for babies if mothers-to-be consumed seafood with lower mercury levels.

So I should avoid the fish with high mercury content.

This sounds like a job for Captain Obvious.

Okay, enough sarcasm.

The bottom line

  • Eat fish that is high in Omega 3 fatty acids but low in Mercury content.

Image courtesy of the Maine Dept. of Environmental Health

  • Supplement with fish oils that have been labeled Pharmaceutical Grade or Molecularly Distilled. Keep in mind that it is a little like the wild west out there with fish oil supplements. You may need to do a little research and even ask a few questions.
  • The University of Guelph run International Fish Oil Standards tests fish oil supplements for their purity. Their website is here.
  • I personally use the Ascenta brand Nutra-Sea fish oil. You can enter the batch number of your purchased product in their website to see the specific third part purity report, or you can see a sample report here.

.

If you like what you see here, click here for updates or Share this Post with the rest of the world.

If you are interested in a better way to eat, click here or here or here.

Thanks.

Popularity: 3% [?]

11 comments »

Posted in Diet/Nutrition, In the News, Research, health

Tags:

Top Sites Fitness