Start Moving to Stop Brain Shrinkage!!

In a research project spanning two decades, scientists have found that the participants who were less fit at age 40 had a greater degree of brain shrinkage 20 years later compared to those who were in better shape.

The brain shrinkage was small but significant enough to raise the participants' risk of memory loss and dementia, the researchers said. The study appears today (Feb. 10) in the journal Neurology.

The research tapped into data from the Framingham Heart Study, an ongoing program that has followed the lives of thousands of ordinary people over the course of nearly 70 years and three generations.

Researchers led by Nicole Spartano, a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University School of Medicine, looked at data from approximately 1,100 Framingham participants who underwent a vigorous treadmill test and MRI scan when they were about 40 years old. The participants did not have heart disease or dementia. These same participants did a similar treadmill test and MRI scan 20 years later.

The treadmill test provided information about their physical fitness and heart health because it measured how long they could stay on the treadmill before their heart rate reached 85 percent of their estimated maximum heart rate. The time spent on the treadmill was used to estimate VO2 max, the maximum amount of oxygen one's body can use in one minute.

An average, healthy person typically has a peak VO2 of about 30 to 40 mL/kg/min (milliliters of oxygen per kilogram body weight per minute). Elite athletes can have twice this rate.

The researchers also measured the participants' blood pressure and the amount that their heart rate increased during the exercise. Participants with lower estimated VO2 max, higher blood pressure or greater increase in heart rate during exercise as 40-year-olds all had greater brain shrinkage 20 years later.

Participants had one year of accelerated brain aging for each 8 mL/kg/min lower estimated VO2 max, 17 beats per minute higher heart rate or 14 mm Hg higher diastolic blood pressure during exercise, Spartano said.

"If you think about each of these factors having an effect on your brain health, then the effects can really start to add up," Spartano told Live Science. The effect was not huge, but was still seen after the researchers adjusted for other factors that may affect brain health, such as high blood pressure, smoking and diabetes, she said.
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