While it’s a known fact that a healthy diet and exercise are important to maintain good health, a latest study has shown just how much they actually benefit the brain, and even possibly reverse effects of ageing. In a study, researchers led by James Blumenthal, a professor in psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center, found that even among a group of older people who already show signs of thinking problems, exercising regularly over six months and eating more healthy can improve performance on cognitive tests.
The 160 people began the study showing thinking skills that were similar to people in their 90s — 28 years older, on average, than they actually were. The volunteers were divided into four groups. One group participated in an aerobic exercise program, another was assigned a low-sodium diet, a third was asked to exercise and change their diet at the same time, and a fourth control group was provided educational sessions about how to improve their brain health.
The group that exercised and changed its diet at the same time showed the greatest improvements in cognitive tests after six months. They improved their test scores by nine years, to resemble those of people 84 years old. The control group showed a continued decline in their brain test scores, and the researchers did not see a significant benefit from either exercise or change in diet alone. “The bottom line is that it’s not too late to derive benefits from exercise,” says Blumenthal.
The fact that the group following both the exercise and diet programs showed the greatest benefit suggests that the two interventions may work together to improve brain health, Blumenthal says. “We saw evidence that exercise and the diet together are better than nothing,” he says. “We showed you can get improvements in function that can reduce and certainly improve neurocognitive function, and possibly even postpone development of dementia late in life.”
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