Rob Zaleski: Real exercise is found to be best brain tonic

Rob Zaleski — 11/24/2007 9:54 am

Forget about crossword puzzles, sudoku, or computer "brain exercise" programs.


If you really want to fend off Alzheimer's disease as you get older, take up jogging or tennis or bowling. OK, maybe not bowling. But just taking a long, brisk walk three or four times a week will help keep you mentally sharp.

Or so two neuroscientists maintained in an enlightening op-ed piece in the New York Times earlier this month.

It's not that brain exercises are useless. In fact, they can help people perform better at specific tasks like sudoku or memorizing long lists, say Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang, who are co-authors of a new book, "Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life."

But brain exercises don't seem to have any effect on general mental fitness, the two wrote. Which will undoubtedly come as a big disappointment to those who've purchased brain exercise products, sales of which are expected to top $80 million in the United States this year.

Physical exercise, on the other hand, not only maintains brain health but often improves it, say the scientists, based on a recent analysis of 18 studies.


"People who exercise regularly in middle age are one-third as likely to get Alzheimer's disease in their 70s as those who did not exercise," they wrote. "Even people who began exercising in their 60s have their risk reduced by half."

None of this came as a surprise to Ron Kalil, a professor of neuroscience at UW-Madison who's done research in this area and was elated to hear that I was writing about it.

"The evidence is indisputable," he says. "We've long known that physical exercise is good for the joints, good for the heart, keeps the fat down. And now we can add that it's good for the brain.

"So bring the message to the folks in Madison."

As I read the op-ed piece, I couldn't help but think of Warren Webster, a former World War II fighter pilot who lives in Verona and was featured in this space two years ago. Webster is now 92 and still plays competitive tennis -- three times a week during the summer at courts in Monona and twice a week during the winter at the John Powless Tennis Center.

But as his tennis buddies like to point out, it's not just the fact that he can hold his own with players 30 years younger that's so impressive. It's that he's very engaged mentally as well.

Webster, contacted last week, said he hadn't seen the Times article. But he was hardly surprised by the scientists' findings, noting that he's long believed that a good workout helps keep him mentally focused.

"Although some days it's enough to remember my own name," he joked.

Kalil says decades of animal research -- much of it viewed with skepticism by the neuroscience community -- showed that physical exercise stimulates the production of neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region critical for memory. More recent studies -- some involving humans -- have all but confirmed it.

"It's an incredibly important part of the brain," he says. "If anything happens to your hippocampus, you lose all ability to remember what happened to you even a few minutes ago. Your hippocampus basically is overseeing your ability to hold on to memory for short periods of time and to move the important memories into long-term storage.

"So if someone gives you a phone number to call and you pick up the phone and dial that number, you're holding that very short-term memory in your hippocampus."

It's clear now that thousands upon thousands of new neurons are being produced in the hippocampus in normal, healthy adults every day -- even older adults, Kalil says. Physical exercise boosts that production and, in the process, strengthens one's memory.

It's a remarkable discovery, Kalil says, but one that, unfortunately, hasn't gotten much publicity.

"It's important that people know about this, because exercise is something that's so simple to do," he says. "You don't need special gear or special talents. You don't have to do anything but get off your butt and get out there and do some exercise -- and it will help!

"It's as straightforward as that. It's an undeniable, positive thing."

Rob Zaleski — 11/24/2007 9:54 am