Play sports, it’s good for your memory!

THE ESSENTIAL

• Seniors with memory problems tracked aerobics bears for a year
• Their test results have improved by 47%
• Exercise Could Help Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease

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Eating fish, sleeping well or playing chess: a number of activities can stimulate memory. Physical exercise is added to this list. According to American research, playing sports stimulates blood flow to the brain, which improves memory. Their results were published in the specialized journal Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Significant improvement in memory capacities

For a year, the research team at UT Southwestern Medical Center followed 30 participants aged 60 and over with memory problems. They gathered information about changes in their memory and the blood flow in their brains. Half of them took aerobics during these 12 months, the other part of the group only practiced stretching. In this latter group, there have been few changes. The physical activity group improved their memory test scores by 47%. Blood flow was also greater in two memory-related areas of the brain: the hippocampus and the anterior Sinhalese cortex.

What implications for Alzheimer’s disease?

According to the researchers, these results indicate that physical exercise could be beneficial in people at high risk of suffering from Azheimer’s disease. “We have shown that even when your memory starts to fail, there is something you can still do, including doing aerobics regularly,” says research author Binu Thomas.

This is not the first study to look at the links between memory and sport. In February 2019, a team of scientists demonstrated that physical activity can produce irisine, a hormone that improves short-term memory. Sport would therefore fight cognitive decline and prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

In France, 900,000 people suffer from this neurodegenerative disease. There is no curative treatment to cure it when it is late. Its causes are still unknown, but age is a risk factor. Two million people could be sick in 2030 in the country, partly due to the aging of the population.

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