Anti Aging
Discoveries - How exercise can combat Alzheimer's
One of the latest anti aging discoveries is how
regular exercise affects Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is a
degenerative and terminal brain disease that most often affects
individuals over the age of 65. The most common symptoms of Alzheimer's
in its earliest stages are loss of balance and memory. As the disease
advances, symptoms such as confusion, anger, mood swings, language
breakdown and long-term memory loss become apparent. In its most
advanced form, major and minor bodily functions break down, resulting
in death. The mean life expectancy of a patient diagnosed with
Alzheimer's is 7 years.
Exercise
keeps your brain YOUNG
While there is no cure for Alzheimer's, scientists
have found that
regular exercise can help slow down age related brain cell death in
healthy older adults. In particular, regular exercise positively
affects the hippocampus region of the brain, which controls memory and
balance.
Robyn A.
Honea, a lead investigator with the Kansas Medical
Center, had this to say:
"This is the first study to get an inside
look into specifically where these changes occur in the brain - we're
able to locate the changes associated with fitness to the actual memory
region, the hippocampus, which is a key area for Alzheimer's-related
atrophy. This suggests that maintaining cardiorespiratory fitness may
positively modify Alzheimer's-related brain atrophy."
When it comes to Alzheimer's, it sounds to me like
an ounce of preventive exercise may well be worth a pound of (at this
time, non-existant) cure.
Maintain your
sense of Balance
Another point that I want to stress is that,
Alzheimer's or not, regular exercise helps older individuals maintain
their sense of balance. In another report on anti aging discoveries,
Megan J. Wraith of Western Medicine noted:
"Falls have a negative impact on a
person's quality of life, often resulting in nursing home placement,
increased mortality and significant costs to the community. Targeting
this high risk group may be a relatively cost effective way of having a
significant impact on the overall rate of falling in the elderly."
One of the great advantages of natural, body
weight workouts such as those on this website is that they all force
you to maintain and work your sense of balance. Exercise machines in a
gym restrict your movements to the point that your balance is not
worked at all. This is another reason simple, animal like movements are
so far superior to modern gyms.
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