Shortcuts to prolonged health upgrades

Want to protect your brain from neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s? Turns out, six minutes of high-intensity cycling turns on a gene in stressed muscles that produces a small protein called irisin. Irisin boosts production of another protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor that’s essential for brain learning and memory and could protect the brain from age-related cognitive decline. It has that effect because BDNF increases new neural connections and pathways and promotes survival of neurons. That, in turn, increases the formation and storage of memories, enhances learning and boosts cognitive performance — at least in animal studies.

These insights come from research in The Journal of Physiology that looked at the brain benefits of fasting for 20 hours, 90 minutes of low-intensity cycling, a six-minute bout of vigorous cycling and the combination of exercise and fasting. Short but vigorous cycling boosted BDNF four to five times more than fasting (that caused no change) and prolonged low-intensity exercise (caused a slight bump). Another theory (besides irisin production) about why high-intensity exercise works is that it increases blood platelet production by 20 percent and blood platelets store a lot of BDNF.

This adds to the info on how important it is to get frequent, short periods of activity. One study found that five minutes of walking every half hour offsets some of sedentary behavior’s most harmful effects by lowering blood sugar and blood pressure and reducing blood sugar spikes by 58 percent after a big meal. That’s compared with sitting with no breaks all day. So don’t just sit there!

Mask up

Surgical, N95 and KN95 masks do reduce your risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19, despite the current storm on social media that claims, “If face masks worked, China wouldn’t be seeing such numbers. … In fact, there’s no evidence that mask mandates helped reduce infections anywhere.”

Research shows that widespread use of masks is effective in reducing transmission. One study found that in 12 U.S. counties between March 21 and Oct. 20, 2020, once masks were mandated, the daily case incidence per 100,000 people in masked counties compared with unmasked counties declined by 25 percent at four weeks and 35 percent at six weeks. And most of the masks used then were not N95 or KN95 — which are the most effective.