Fitness speeds up brain but not memory
Wednesday September 25th, 2013
Being physically fit may speed up the brain - but it does not enhance the memory, a major conference was told yesterday.
The
findings challenge the idea that fitness may help stave off dementia.
Reporting to the World Congress of Neurology in Vienna, Austria, researchers say physical fitness helps improve the brain's "executive functions" - the ability to organise and control behaviour.
It also helps the brain work faster, they say.
Austrian researchers studied some 282 people with an average age of 73 over a period of three years.
Researcher Professor Franz Fazekas, of the Medical University Graz, said the findings contradicted the idea that exercise would act as "doping" to enhance the memory.
But he added: "The available results offer one further reason to incorporate regular exercise into our daily lives and thereby to do good not only for the body but for the mind as well.”
Tags: Brain & Neurology | Elderly Health | Europe | Fitness
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