Exercise Keeps Your Brain Youthful

Engaging in regular exercise brings a host of health benefits, such as stronger muscles, better heart health, lower blood sugar levels, and more. Activities like treadmill running, biking uphill, weight lifting, or taking brisk walks offer numerous advantages beyond just improving physical appearance or stamina (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
How does exercise keep your brain young?

Go to source). Research shows that consistent exercise can boost mood, reduce stress, and enhance cognitive function, highlighting the strong connection between body and mind. However, people may experience different benefits from various forms of exercise, like aerobic workouts or strength training.

While the importance of regular exercise for a healthy lifestyle is well known, some older studies suggested that intense exercise might have negative effects. However, more recent research indicates that elite athletes tend to live slightly longer.

Exercise is also great for brain health, as it improves cognition, and mood, and reduces the risk of neurodegenerative diseases by promoting new brain cell growth and strengthening connections between neurons.

Advertisement

How Exercise Affects the Body at the Molecular Level

A study led by Stanford Medicine explored how exercise benefits overall health, particularly brain health, at a molecular level. Understanding these effects can help healthcare providers make better exercise recommendations and could lead to drug therapies that mimic exercise benefits for those unable to be active.

Published in Nature, the study involved nearly 10,000 measurements across almost 20 types of tissues to examine the impact of 8 weeks of endurance exercise in lab rats. The findings showed significant effects on the immune system, stress response, energy production, and metabolism.

Researchers found strong links between exercise and molecules and genes involved in various human diseases and tissue recovery. Other studies by Stanford Medicine also examined exercise-induced genetic and tissue changes related to disease risk and effects on mitochondria, the cellular energy producers, in various tissues in rats.

Advertisement

How Endurance Training Affects the Body

The study looked at the effects of 8 weeks of endurance training on different biological systems, including gene expression, proteins, fats, metabolites, DNA chemical tags, and the immune system. They compared tissues from rats trained to run increasing distances with tissues from sedentary rats.

They focused on mitochondria in the leg muscles, heart, liver, kidney, body fat, lungs, brain, and brown fat (which burns calories). This approach generated a vast amount of data for future research. Some key findings included changes in mitochondrial gene expression with exercise across different tissues.

For example, exercise upregulated genes in the skeletal muscle mitochondria of rats, which are downregulated in people with type 2 diabetes, and upregulated genes in the liver mitochondria, which are downregulated in people with cirrhosis. These findings suggest that endurance training may improve muscle function in diabetes and enhance liver health.

Advertisement

Does Biological Sex Affect How We Respond to Exercise?

The study also found differences in how male and female rats' tissues responded to exercise. After 8 weeks, male rats lost about 5% of their body fat, while female rats did not lose a significant amount. However, female rats maintained their initial fat percentage, whereas sedentary females gained an additional 4% body fat during the study.

The biggest difference in mitochondrial gene expression after exercise was observed in the adrenal glands. The study authors suggest these differences are largely due to changes in mitochondrial genetic expression in organs and tissues responsible for maintaining energy balance.

Exercise’s Rejuvenating Effect on Immune Cells

Another study by The University of Queensland in Australia, published in Aging Cell, showed how exercise might prevent or slow cognitive decline with age. Researchers examined gene expression in individual brain cells of mice and found that exercise significantly influences gene expression in microglia, the immune cells that support brain function.

Exercise reverted the gene expression patterns of aged microglia to those seen in young microglia. Experiments showed that depleting microglia negated the beneficial effects of exercise on creating new neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region crucial for memory, learning, and emotion.

Providing mice with access to a running wheel reduced the presence of T cells in the hippocampus as they aged. These immune cells are typically absent in youthful brains but increase with age.

Jana Vukovic, PhD, assistant professor at The University of Queensland, explained that aging affects all brain cell types, particularly microglia, and that exercise reverts their gene profile to a youthful state. This understanding of how exercise supports brain health is a key question for many scientists globally.

Exercise Strengthens Brain Cell Connections

Ryan Glatt, a senior brain health coach at Pacific Neuroscience Institute, noted that these studies highlight the many benefits of exercise on brain health through gene regulation, mitochondrial function, and immune response. He explained that exercise enhances synaptic plasticity and blood flow, reduces inflammation, and increases the expression of neurotrophic factors like BDNF, improving memory, learning, and overall brain health.

Exercise influences gene expression related to brain plasticity, inflammation, and metabolism, while enhancing mitochondrial function and modulating immune responses. Hormonal changes due to physical activity can also improve mood and reduce stress.

"Exercise is the key not only to physical health but to peace of mind." – Nelson Mandela
Reference:

1. How does exercise keep your brain young? - (https://www.science.org/content/article/how-does-exercise-keep-your-brain-young)

Source-Medindia