DEAR DOCTOR K: You say that physical exercise helps to improve brain health, but it’s not obvious to me how that could be. Do researchers understand exactly how exercise helps the brain?
Dear reaDer: i understand why that’s puzzling. it’s easier to see how regular moderate exercise could protect against heart disease, for example. The heart is a muscle, and exercise makes the heart exercise. But the brain? We don’t think of exercise as requiring a lot of brainpower. in fact, some people like exercise because it’s a time when they can turn off their brain. First, what’s the evidence that regular exercise does protect the brain? There are many studies. as an example, a study published in February 2016 in the journal Neurology links better cardiovascular fitness to improved thinking skills in older adults. The study included 877 adults with an average age of 65 years. researchers used a measure called “VO2 max” to assess their fitness. This is the maximum amount of oxygen your body uses while you’re exercising as hard as you can. study participants also took a variety of tests to gauge their thinking skills, memory and executive function. (executive function is a term for mental skills used to manage