He sport It is one of the main keys to prolong youth, prevent aging, extend life expectancy and provide the body with an optimal state of health. In addition to improving mood and reducing the risk of mental health disorders such as anxiety or depression, doing a certain type of exercise could hold the key to delaying and alleviating Alzheimer’s symptoms.
A study carried out on mice by researchers from the Federal University of São Paulo and the University of São Paulo in Brazil offers interesting conclusions in this regard. Published in Frontiers in Neuroscience offers evidence that resistance training has a beneficial effect on the brain of dementia patients.
Let’s make an aside, what is e l resistance training? Also called aerobic or cardio exercise, it is one that stimulates the physical endurance capacity of the body in the face of a sustained effort, whether local or general. It covers activities that increase breathing and heart rate, such as walking, running, swimming, bicycling, and jumping rope.
“This confirms that physical activity can reverse the neuropathological alterations that cause the clinical symptoms of the disease,” he affirms to Science Alert neuroscientist Henrique Correia Campos, from the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP).
Mice underwent 4 weeks of resistance training.
The mice in the experiment underwent a genetic mutation so that the beta-amyloid protein plaques accumulated —as happens in Alzheimer’s patients. Afterwards, they trained with resistance exercises for 4 weeks, having to go up and down stairs and do weights. Afterwards, they were compared with the control group.
Mice with dementia reduced plaque accumulation after the training program and, in addition, the levels of the hormone corticosterone in their blood plasma were similar to the plasma levels of the control group mice he. Corticosterone is equivalent to cortisol in humans, the stress hormone that has also been linked to Alzheimer’s.
Since both Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia can cause wandering and restlessness in mice, mice with beta-amyloid plaque were also tested for anxiety: resistance training also reduced their anxiety in the open field test.
“We found that it reduced excessive stimulation of the nervous system to levels similar to controls among mice with the Alzheimer’s-associated phenotype,” says neuroscientist Deidiane Elisa Ribeiro, from the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
A biomarker would help detect the rarest and earliest Alzheimer’s years before its onset
There is still a long way to go for science in this field: from discovering the specific role of beta-amyloid plaques in the onset of Alzheimer’s to considering the physiological differences between humans and mice or testing the role of this type of plaque in clinical studies. exercise in patients with dementia.
Previous studies found that resistance exercise can strengthen brain connections that tend to break down when dementia sets in. “The main possible reason for this efficacy is the anti-inflammatory action of resistance exercise,” says UNIFESP neurophysiologist Beatriz Monteiro Longo.
While you wait for science to show more conclusive results, resistance exercises have many advantages for you: from increasing your strength and muscle mass, to maintaining balance or contributing to bone density, preventing future problems such as osteoporosis.
By:Anna Veerman