Aerobics can help save brain

When the Masters National Indoor Track & Field Championships at LSU was canceled in March due to COVID-19, 104-year-old Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins took it in stride. After all, she’d already earned three records in the four years she’d been competing in the 100-yard dash. She simply turned her attention to her acre-size garden and 50-year-old, indoor bonsai plants.

Never has it been clearer that exercise is an essential part of healthy longevity for body and mind — and that it is never too late to get started! Researchers from the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of

Calgary have found that when even couch potatoes start getting regular aerobic activity, their thinking and memory improves measurably.

Study participants (average age 65.9) started out doing a threedays-week aerobics routine for 20 minutes and slowly increased to 40 minutes a session. In addition, they were working out on their own once a week.

After six months, those folks registered a 5.7% improvement in executive function tests (both mental flexibility and self-correction) and verbal fluency went up 2.4%.

That’s just in six months and with four, not five or more, days a week of activity. Think of what you can do in a year!

The improvement comes, say the researchers, from increased blood flow to the brain — it went up almost 3%, as measured with ultrasound. They say that’s significant since it’s happening at a time in life when, for many people, six months is long enough to notice a decline in cognitive powers.