A morning walk could jog your memory

Older Americans play with video games that promise to keep their minds sharp. Some do crossword puzzles, try to master foreign languages or learn to play musical instruments — all in the hope of staving off Alzheimer's. Now, a growing body of research is offering tantalizing evidence that a brisk walk in the morning or some laps in the pool might accomplish the same task.

"There's an avalanche of neuroscience to support that (physical) exercise is good for the brain," said John Ratey, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and co-author of an upcoming book on the subject.

That's hopeful news for many who worry that growing old may mean losing their minds.

A survey conducted last year by Harris Interactive for the MetLife Foundation found that Alzheimer's was a bigger source of anxiety for Americans 55 and older than heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

"Losing one's mental faculties is people's biggest fear," said Shawn Brennan, who specializes in promoting senior health initiatives for Montgomery County's Department of Health and Human Services. "Whenever we have an event focusing on improving your memory, people just flock to it."

SHARPENING UP AT 80
Dorothy Mudd, 80, of Chevy Chase, Md., has heard enough to change her habits. Her goal is to be physically and mentally fit, so six months ago she hired a personal trainer. She was sore at first, but within a few months, she says, she felt stronger - and mentally sharper.
In a six-year study of 1,740 adults 65 and older published last year in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers found those who exercised more than three times a week were less likely to develop dementia than those who didn't. A 2005 study of 3,375 adults in the same age group produced similar results. But investigators said the findings, while encouraging, don't yet prove that exercise prevents the onset of dementia.
Scientists believe aerobic exercise increases activity in the frontal regions of the brain that control "executive functions": working memory, multitasking and the ability to sort and screen out distractions. The findings are especially promising because these are the areas of the brain most vulnerable as people age, researchers say.

"Exercise can help turn off the death march of cells both in our bodies and our brains," Ratey said.
Designing research to test the potential effect of exercise on specific brain functions, however, can be tricky.
For one study published this year, Bradley Hatfield, a professor of kinesiology and sports psychology at the University of Maryland, and fellow researchers devised tests of mental skills: In one, they asked 120 seniors to distinguish quickly between a series of auditory tones; in another, the seniors had to sort through conflicting visual information. Hatfield and his team found that physically active participants showed "more vigorous" responses to the tests than others. Technological advances are also letting scientists monitor changes in the brain.
In a study published last year, a team of researchers from the University of Illinois was among the first to use functional magnetic resonance imaging, a neuroimaging technique, to show changes in the brains of subjects they studied. Those who took part in aerobic exercise showed the largest change in brain volume, particularly in the frontal areas of the brain associated with memory, the study showed.
Arthur Kramer, a professor of neuroscience who was part of the University of Illinois team, said the findings suggest that aerobic exercise has the potential to help roll back normal age-related declines in brain structure, though more evidence is needed.
Kramer said research demonstrates that aerobic exercise generates new neurons in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for some aspects of memory. He said animal studies show a strong link between exercise and a sharper mind.
A few weeks of exercise for mice and rats "will improve their learning and memory in the tasks that are used to test these functions," Kramer said. "We have no reason to believe that would be different for humans."

Kramer said the team's finding and those of others across the country are especially promising because they offer people an easy, low-cost path to better mental health.
JUST MOVING MAY BE THE KEY
But while early data look promising, scientists say more research is needed to answer such questions as how much exercise is optimum and what kind of workout is best.

"What is still not quite determined is whether it's physical fitness or physical activity," Hatfield said. "Just moving may be the key, as opposed to being someone who can run the Marine Corps marathon."
Once that's answered, another question will remain: Will the findings be enough to get seniors off the couch?
Despite this growing body of research extolling the physical and mental benefits of exercise, government surveys show that seniors remain the least likely to exercise. In fact, the older Americans get, the less likely they are to be physically active.
According to government surveys conducted between 2002 and 2004, about 39 percent of adults ages 18 to 24 engage in regular leisure-time physical activity. That compares with just 17 percent of adults 71 and older. A 2004 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than half - 58 percent - of people 65 and older reported 10 minutes or less per week of leisure-time physical activity.
Nonetheless, Kramer is optimistic that people's concern will translate into action.
Those who work with seniors cite a variety of reasons why older folks might be reluctant to start an exercise program. Some fear they'll get hurt, others would rather take a pill and still others are just lazy.
As the senior sports and fitness coordinator for the Rockville (Md.) Senior Center, Chris Klopfer's job is to get people moving, whether it's pushing them to sign up for a Chair Cardio class or senior belly dancing.

"I tell some people, 'Just start out with five minutes - get through five minutes on the bike. Walk five minutes on the treadmill,'" said Klopfer, who has become a pro at coaxing reluctant seniors onto treadmills. "I don't think people realize they can start out with that little bit and still make progress."

Source: http://www.thefitnessclub.info/

Study: Overweight Kids Risk Early Heart Disease as Adults

Overweight Kids Become Adults With Sick Hearts; Huge Problem Seen by 2035
Overweight children grow into adults at high risk of early heart disease and early heart death, a long-term Danish study shows.
The finding isn't a prediction -- it's hard data from very long-term data on 10,235 men and 4,318 women born in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 1930 through 1976.
But given the size of the ongoing obesity epidemic, the findings predict a huge wave of future heart disease.
Researchers Jennifer L. Baker, PhD, and colleagues at Copenhagen's Center for Health and Society painstakingly compiled records for virtually every schoolchild in the city and matched them with national health records.
The bottom line: After the age of 7, overweight children have an increased risk of adult heart disease. The higher a child's body mass index -- BMI,which relates weight to height -- the higher that child's risk of becoming an adult with heart disease.
"What we found was at the age of 7, for both boys and girls, the risk was moderate," Baker tells WebMD. "By age 13, the risk increased dramatically."
A child does not have to be hugely obese to be at increased risk.
"We compared the average 13-year-old boy, who weighed 96 pounds, to a heavier boy of the same height who weighed 121 pounds," Baker says. "Even for a normal-weight boy, there is a one-in-nine risk of heart disease by age 60. For the heavier child, this risk becomes at least one in six. We find that highly significant."
Pediatric cardiologist Tom Kimball, MD, of Cincinnati Children's Hospital, says the findings are a warning that parents must take childhood weight problems seriously -- even in young children.
"This is not an adult problem. It is a kid problem," Kimball tells WebMD. "This study has a big message for parents."
During the 46 years of the study, an overweight child's risk of becoming an adult with a sick heart did not change much. The problem did not so much appear to be the modern diet as the simple fact of being overweight as a child.
Tsunami of Heart Disease Predicted
Modern diets being what they are, child obesity is increasing at an alarming pace. Overweight children tend to become overweight teens, and overweight teens tend to become adults with heart disease.
A computer simulation by Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, PhD, and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that today's teen obesity epidemic means that by 2020, 30% to 37% of 35-year-old men and 34% to 44% of 35-year-old women will be obese.
By 2035, there would be up to a 16% increase in heart disease cases, with over 100,000 cases due to obesity, the researchers predict.
Both the Baker and Biggins-Domingo reports appear in the Dec. 6 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
In an editorial accompanying the studies, Harvard researcher David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD, predicts that by 2050, the U.S. obesity epidemic will cut Americans' life span by two to five years. That effect would be equal to the effect of all cancers combined.
"We lack anything resembling a comprehensive strategy for encouraging children to eat a healthful diet and engage in physical activity," Ludwig writes.
He suggests that a sensible strategy would:
- Regulate junk-food advertising
- Fund healthy lunches and physical activities at school
- Restructure farm subsidies to reward production of nutrient-dense produce rather than calorie-dense produce
- Require that insurers cover programs to prevent and treat child obesity
At the bottom of the Pandora's box of child obesity, Baker finds hope.
"Even though we are showing that children's body size puts them at risk, there is still a ray of hope in what we find," she says. "Because risks are moderate at age 7 and increase by age 13, it suggests that helping these children attain and maintain appropriate weight -- even during this short time -- can really improve their future outlook."
Source: http://www.happykidsclub.info/