Why strength training prevents mental decline....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 1-17-2012

Last Sunday in the Parade section in their StayHealthy feature they had an interview with Dr Gary Small who is the author of “The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program.”

They asked him what exercise had to do with memory. He first noted that the improved circulation benefits your brain. He noted that exercise helps prevent type 2 diabetes which is a direct cause of mental decline and may be of Alzheimer’s disease as well.

Then he said, “And we’ve found that lifting weights can improve cognitive health too, perhaps due to the brainpower spent on maintaining proper form.”

That’s true from what I’ve read. But there are several other reasons. Then too there are other ways to get that effect. And, there are other kinds of exercises that give you similar effects.

That’s what this post is about. And, there are supplements that add to one of these likely effects.

To do strength training well, you do have to maintain proper form at least to some degree or you’ll injure yourself.

Some styles or patterns to doing strength training give you better results. It takes mental effort and focus to do those patterns. You count the number of repetitions. You monitor your level of effort. You focus and increase your effort at certain key times. You manage and sequence the exercises and sets.

If you are experienced and want to keep exercising you often write down what you did in a log in abbreviated form. You then compare what you did with what you wanted to do and what you did before.

Each of those are executive functions that you also use to remember and recall things. With memory, you note things you want to remember later. You organize the like things you want to remember and how they relate to each other.

And, when you want to recall things, you think of all the things that are associated with them as an aid to the recall. These range from remembering where you learned that thing to what letter the word started with to why you thought it important at the time and more.

When you use the executive skills doing strength training, you not only develop skill, your brain grows new brain cells and connections that support the executive function.

And the more of those you have, the more you can lose without the overall system not working.

But strength training also makes losing brain cells less likely!

(Surprisingly, regular conversation and social contact has similar effects on your executive skills and the nerves it grows and uses.)

You do get the better circulation from strength training too. You get stress relief. And such exercise produces several chemical messengers that help your body control blood sugar and avoid getting too fat or help losing fat.

But the huge benefit of well done strength training is that it causes growth hormone release! One of those hormones, BDNF, grows new nerves and brain cells! This may happen to build up the nerves in your brain and muscles to support the kind of exercise you are doing. Some of those new brain cells are in the same executive skills areas that you use in memory skills. And, all the rest of your brain gets the benefit too.

Also, exercises such as strength training, interval cardio, doing a martial art, dancing – particularly at a fast or brisk pace, aerobic dancing, or doing a competitive sport -- all have these similar effects too!

I just read an online story today from Scientific American noting that one cause of mental decline from aging is that as the cells in your body age, they stop producing as much of something called, “Lon Protease.”

(I strongly suspect the growth hormone release from such exercises slows this drop off effect also.)

That compound helps your cells to avoid damage from oxidation. In particular, it helps to avoid damage to the mitochondria in your cells. The mitochondria are the energy and power centers of each of your cells. You feel you have less energy because you do have less if your mitochondria are damaged. But worse than that, your cells can die if they get too much of this kind of damage.

But the kind of exercise that increases circulation and boosts your growth hormones dramatically slows aging. It prevents the messages in your nerves from slowing down. And it may even preserve the ability of your body to repair things with its own stem cells.

Also you can also prevent this damage and even reverse it to some degree with some foods and supplements.

And, there is a supplement that directly protects and increases the health of your mitochondria.

Oranges, berries, many other kinds of fruit, and most raw vegetables are high in vitamin C. Eating those foods and taking 500 mg or more a day of vitamin C does the double.: The vitamin C is an antioxidant and directly protective. And, some studies have found that getting enough vitamin C keeps your telomeres from getting shorter which directly slows aging.

Taking the natural form of vitamin E, not the inferior synthetic one, and eating health OK oils in foods gives you the whole complex of highly antioxidant E vitamins, tocopherols and tocotrienols, is a powerful way to boost these antioxidants in your body. Nuts, avocados, and extra virgin olive oil are great sources to use.

The supplement alpha lipoic acid helps your body get more antioxidant effects from both water soluble antioxidants like vitamin C and fat soluble ones like vitamin E.

The most effective version of the supplement that directly protects and increases the health of your mitochondria is called ubiquinol.

(CoQ10 is processed by your body into ubiquinol. And the form your body uses is ubiquinol. You can take CoQ10; but your body may be inefficient in converting it into ubiquinol. And your blood stream has far less to use than it does if you take ubiquinol directly studies found.

Or to put it the other way around, you might need to take 400 mg of CoQ10 3 times a day to get the same effect as talking 100 mg of ubiquinol two times a day.)

Like many other key compounds, your body makes ubiquinol or CoQ10 when you are younger.

But to have that same energy and heart and brain health when you are old enough that no longer happens much, it helps a good deal to take ubiquinol.

Now this new information shows taking ubiquinol may also prevent your brain cells from dying too!

All this shows that you CAN protect your brain from mental decline by doing vigorous exercise every week that commands your executive attention from dance aerobics to strength training.

You can enhance and extend that effect by eating organic foods high in antioxidants and taking good quality antioxidant supplements.

And, you can enhance and extend those effects by also taking the supplement ubiquinol.

Even better, each of those steps improves your heart health and overall health too!