Get out and walk! Vigorously!

"Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory, "
PNAS 2011 108 (7) 3017-3022; published ahead of print January 31, 2011

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study, "scientists started with 120 elderly volunteers who were relatively inactive but did not have dementia. Half were randomly assigned to begin walking 40 minutes a day, three days a week for a year while the remainder only stretched and performed toning exercises for the same time period. After 12 months, the group that walked showed an average 2% growth in the hippocampus compared with when they began, while the control groups suffered a more than 1% shrinkage in the same region compared with when the study started.

“If you estimate the change at an individual level,” says study co-author Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois, “a yearlong exercise program can turn back the clock about two years with respect to the volume of the hippocampus.” "

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/31/want-to-improve-your-memory-take-a-walk/#ixzz1Euftky36

60 minutes a day? Everyday?

This reminds me of taxes. We're all getting used to the health police telling us we need to exercise 3 x a week, and then they up the ante.

"If you want to prevent your weight gain over time you need to be physically active at the level of 60 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity, so the equivalent of one hour a day of brisk walking or 30 minutes a day of jogging or running," said I-Min Lee, M.B.B.S., Sc.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Lee and co-authors studied more than 34,000 women starting at an average age of 54, following and updating their activity level for 13 years. The women were divided into three groups. Those exercising 60, 30 and less than 30 minutes. "These two lesser activity groups of women were significantly more likely to gain weight compared to the most active group of women," said Lee.

The study appears in this week's JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association. "We found that physical activity was effective in controlling weight only among women who started off with a normal BMI," said Lee. "The women who were overweight or obese, physical activity, with the range done in the study was not sufficient to control their weight."

For heavier women, researchers say not to let the 60 minutes of daily exercise discourage you from starting or continuing to exercise. "While our study shows that this might not be sufficient to maintain normal weight it clearly is sufficient to reduce the risk of developing many chronic diseases including heart disease, certain types of cancer, type II diabetes," said Lee.

Researchers report that women in the study consumed a regular American diet and did not restrict their calories."

Article here.