In a new study, researchers examined the impact of exercise on the brain and found that high-intensity workouts improve memory in older adults.
The study has widespread implications for treating dementia, a catastrophic disease that affects approximately half a million Canadians and is expected to rise dramatically over the next decade.
The research was conducted by a team at McMaster University.
In the study, the team recruited dozens of sedentary but otherwise healthy older adults between the ages of 60 and 88 who were monitored over a 12-week period and participated in three sessions per week.
Some performed high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) while a separate control group engaged in stretching only.
The HIIT protocol included four sets of high-intensity exercise on a treadmill for four minutes, followed by a recovery period.
The MICT protocol included one set of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise for nearly 50 minutes.
The team found older adults in the HIIT group had a substantial increase in high-interference memory compared to the MICT or control groups.
This form of memory allows us to distinguish one car from another of the same make or model, for example.
They also found that improvements in fitness levels directly correlated with improvement in the memory performance.
The researchers suggest that intensity is critical.
Seniors who exercised using short, bursts of activity saw an improvement of up to 30% in the memory performance while participants who worked out moderately saw no improvement, on average.
The team says this work will help to inform the public on exercise prescriptions for brain health so they know exactly what types of exercises boost memory and keep dementia at bay.
They caution that it is important to tailor the exercise to current fitness levels, but adding intensity can be as simple as adding hills to a daily walk or increasing the pace between street lamps.
The lead author of the study is Jennifer Heisz, an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University.
The study is published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism.
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