Exercise boosts children's IQ

Mens sana in corpore sano - a healthy mind in a healthy body - was long one of the watchwords of the English school system and a new study by researchers at Georgia Health Sciences University has provided interesting new evidence of the effects of improved fitness on children's cognition. The researchers studied 171 overweight seven to 11 year-olds who were all sedentary when the study started. The children were divided into groups taking different amounts of exercise and given tests assessing their planning, maths and reading. A smaller group of children were studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure their brain activity. Those children who exercised for 40 minutes a day after school for three months increased their IQ by an average of 3.8 points and made improvements in maths, although not in reading. The children who exercised showed increased activity in the prefrontal cortex - an area of the brain associated with complex thinking, decision making and social behaviour - and more activity in the part of the brain responsible for executive function. The children's exercise included running games, hula hoops and skipping.

Do worry guts children walk less?

Pedometers, which count the number of steps people take, are used both as a research method to monitor people's physical activity and a way of motivating people to take more exercise. In the course of their studies researchers have noted a phenomenon called reactivity in which people's activity increases in response to the fact that they are conscious of being monitored. This can be useful if the object of the exercise is to get people to become more active but not so good if the purpose is to measure people's activity as it distorts the results. Getting children to become more active is very important to prevent childhood obesity and researchers from Hong Kong University studied 156 children aged between nine and 12 to look at whether rehearsal - a tendency to constantly chew over upsetting experiences - is linked to increased pedometer reactivity. The researchers' theory was that the upsetting effect of being monitored would lead to a greater increase in activity in the children who were prone to more rehearsal as they would spend more time thinking about the implications of being monitored. In week one of the study this was, indeed, the case but by week three the children who 'rehearsed' more were showing a decrease in activity levels from week one and were taking far less exercise than average for children of their age group. The study showed both that the effects of reactivity were short-lived and that children who are sedentary may be more prone to dwell on things.

Ling, F. C., Masters, R. S. and McManus, A. M. , Rehearsal and pedometer reactivity in children. Journal of Clinical Psychology, n/a. doi: 10.1002/jclp.20745

How a pair of trainers could keep the college blues away

There is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that exercise improve one's mental health. However, most of the research done so far has concentrated on people who already suffer, to some extent at least, from depression and anxiety. A team of researchers from the University of Gloucestershire and the University of Hertfordshire investigated whether exercise could improve mental health in a sample of 100 students. Students are known to be at greater risk of developing mental health problems because of worries about their studies, finances and moving away from home and one study found that they were 64% more likely to experience symptoms of mental ill-health than other young people. The researchers found that those students who engaged in high levels of physical activity showed significantly lower levels of depression and anxiety than the medium- and low-physical-activity groups and the more the students exercised the less depressed and anxious they were.

Tyson, Philip ... [et al] - Physical activity and mental health in a student population Journal of Mental Health, 2010; 1–8, iFirst article

Exercise and preventing depression - it works but only if you're having fun

Exercise can help to stave off depression but only if you do it in your spare time. Researchers from Norway and the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London studied 40,401 Norwegians asking them about their physical activity and their levels of anxiety and depression. They found that people who took part in regular physical activity - no matter how intense - were less likely to have symptoms of depression. However, this relationship only held true for activity done during leisure time; those people whose work involved physical effort were as likely to be depressed as those people who worked in sedentary jobs. The more people engaged in physical activity during their spare time the less likely they were to be depressed and those who were not active outside work were almost twice as likely to suffer symptoms of depression as more active individuals.

Fitter kids have better brains

Children who are fitter tend to have better-developed brains than out-of-shape ones. Researchers from the University of Illinois studied 49 children aged nine to ten. They measured their fitness on a treadmill, used an MRI scanner to measure the volume of their hippocampus and tested their memory. The fitter children tended to have a bigger hippocampus - an area of the brain associated with learning and memory - about 12% larger than the unfit ones. The fitter children also did better on tests of relational memory - the ability to remember and integrate various types of information - but only if their hippocampus was bigger, suggesting that the link between fitness and a larger hippocampus was the crucial one.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

Even gentle exercise boosts brain power

Even gentle exercise three times a week could help to improve people's cognitive functioning, maintain networks in the brain and fight off the mental decay associated with aging. Researchers from Illinois University studied 100 people, aged between 18 and 35 and 59 and 80. The participants had previously led very sedentary lives. Some of the participants walked three times a week, at their own pace, for 40 minutes while others did toning exercises. The participants had brain scans at the start of the study and after six months and a year and took tests to measure their cognitive function. At the end of the year the older participants who had exercised by walking had better connections in their brain than those who had done toning and stretching and they also did significantly better on cognitive tests, being better at planning, prioritising, deciding on strategies and multitasking.

You can find out more about this research by clicking on the title of this post.

Why a walk, a park and a pond could be the perfect recipe for good mental health

Green exercise is defined as physical activity in the presence of nature and can include walking in the countryside, exercising in a park, gardening or doing conservation work. There is lots of scientific evidence to show that green exercise is beneficial for people's mental health and wellbeing but no-one knows how much you need to do to get the benefits of it. Jules Pretty and Jo Barton from the University of Essex studied 1,252 people using information from ten existing studies including activities such as walking, gardening, cycling, fishing, boating, horse-riding and farming and found that just five minutes of green exercise can benefit mental health. The greatest health changes occured in the young and the mentally ill but people of all ages and social groups benefited. All natural environments were beneficial including parks in cities but green spaces with water were particularly therapeutic.

You can find out more about this research at

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/187390.php

Exercise, illness and anxiety

Having a chronic illness can sometimes lead to the development of anxiety - something that can lower people's quality of life and make them less likely to follow their treatment plans. Researchers from the University of Georgia have been looking into the effectiveness of exercise in reducing this anxiety in a review of 40 studies covering nearly 3,000 patients with a variety of medical conditions. The researchers found that, on average, the patients who exercised regularly reported a 20% reduction in anxiety symptoms. Exercise sessions greater than 30 minutes were better at reducing anxiety than those of less than 30 minutes but programmes of exercise of between 3-12 weeks were actually more effective than those of more than 12 weeks- perhaps because they were less daunting for the participants.

You can find out more about this research at

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/02/24/exercise-helps-to-reduce-anxiety/11681.html

Exercise, schizophrenia and growing your hippocampus

Neural plasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt over time. People with schizophrenia show changes in their brains and it could be the case that they have less neural plasticity than other people. People with schizophrenia also have smaller hippocampi than other people. Exercise is known to stimulate growth in the hippocampus and a team of researchers led by Dr. Frank-Gerald Pajonk from Liebenburg in Germany set out to test this in a study of 32 people, 24 of whom had schizophrenia. Some of the participants did cycling to boost their fitness while the rest played table football. After three months those healthy controls who did exercise showed a 16% increase in the volume of their hippocampi while those people with schizophrenia who exercised showed a 12% increase; whereas the people who played table football's hippocampi actually shrank by 1%. The more people's fitness improved the greater the increase in the size of their hippocampus and the more people's hippocampi grew the more their scores for short-term memory improved.

Pajonk, Frank-Gerald ... [et al] - Hippocampal plasticity in response to exercise in schizophrenia Archives of General Psychiatry February 2010, 67(2), 133-143

Exercise and memory problems: more new evidence

Two studies from the U.S. have added to the evidence that exercise can help to stave off memory problems as we get older. In the first study researchers from the University of Washington School of Medicine compared two groups of 70-year-olds with mild memory problems. One group took an hour of high-intensity exercise with a trainer four days a week while the other group did gentle stretching. After six months the group doing the high-intensity exercise showed improvements in their thinking skills; something that was more marked among the women. In another study researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, found that older people who had exercised since middle age were 39% less likely to have memory problems while those who exercised into old age were almost a third less likely. Unfortunately light exercise such as bowling, slow dancing or golf with a buggy did not reduce the risk of memory problems.

Exercise and optimism

There is lots of evidence pointing to the positive effects of exercise on people's mental health and new research from Finland suggests that it may also stop people from feeling a sense of hopelessness. Researchers from Kuopio University Hospital studied 2,428 men between 42 and 60 and found that those who spent less than one hour a week taking moderate-vigorous exercise were 37% more likely to report feeling hopeless than men who did 2.5 hours or more. Vigorous physical activity was particularly effective and the link remained even after adjusting for age, socioeconomic status and other relevant factors. The men who reported the highest levels of hopelessness had "more pronounced features" of the metabolic syndrome, a cluster of features such as a large waist and high cholesterol known to boost the risk of heart disease and diabetes. They were also less active and physically fit.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5695VZ20090710?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

Exercise and dementia

Exercise is known to improve people's physical and mental health and a study of 50 people by Edris Aman - a second-year medical student at St Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri - has found that it can even be beneficial for those with severe dementia. The participants in the study performed 15 minutes of aerobic exercise and 15 minutes of weight-training three times a week. They became far less agitated after completing the three-week exercise programme and showed significant improvements in how far they could walk in six minutes.

You can find out more about this research at

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE53T5ZH20090430?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

Tae kwon do helps service users in Norwich

People with severe mental-health problems in Norwich, U.K. have been learning tae kwon do. Ben Curran from Julian Housing Support Group got £10,000 from the National Lottery and £14,000 from Sport Relief to provide a year-long programme of weekly classes for up to 20 service users. All the participants said they felt more confident and motivated after going to their classes; their fitness improved and they took better care of themselves.

You can find out more about this initiative at

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/04/06/111209/tae-kwon-do-helps-people-with-severe-mental-health-problems.html

Exercise and neurodegenerative diseases: reviewing the evidence

Physical activity is known to prevent a number of different health problems including cardiovascular disease, high blood-pressure, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. However, the links between physical exercise and neurodegenerative diseases - dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's - are less well-established. Researchers from University College London reviewed 16 long-term studies into the links between exercise and neurodegenerative diseases. They found that, compared to people who did least exercise the people who did the most exercise had only seven-tenths the risk of developing dementia, just over half the risk of developing Alzheimer's and four-fifths the risk of Parkinson's.

Hamer, M. and Chida, Y. - Physical activity and risk of neurodegenerative disease: a systematic review of prospective evidence Psychological Medicine January 2009, 39(1), 3-11

Exercise and anger in children

Exercise has been shown to be effective in improving children's depression and anxiety. A study by researchers at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine looked at the effectiveness of a 10-15 week after-school aerobic exercise programme in reducing anger among children. The researchers found that exercise had a significant effect in reducing children's anger expression as well as helping them to lose weight.

You can read more about this study at

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=news&id=115089&cn=28

Exercise and mental health

Research suggests that exercise reduces anxiety, depression and negative mood and improves self-esteem and cognitive functioning as well as providing a number of physical-health benefits. However, there is little or no mention of exercise in most mental-health textbooks. Researchers from Leeds and Bristol universities looked into the experiences of 11 men with serious mental illness, aged between 24 and 43 who were involved in a variety of exercise activities. They found that exercise contributed strongly towards the participants' feelings of social support.

Carless, David and Douglas, Kitrina - Social support for and through exercise and sport in a sample of men with serious mental illness Issues in Mental Health Nursing December 2008, 29(11), 1179-1199

Exercise and schizophrenia

There has been a growing awareness in recent years of the links between exercise and mental health. Physical exercise has been found to improve depression and anxiety but there has been little research into its effects on schizophrenia. A Turkish study of 30 people with schizophrenia divided them into two groups. One group took part in an aerobic exercise programme over a 10-week period while the other group formed a control group. At the end of the 10-week study period the participants in the exercise programme showed a significant decrease in positive and negative symptoms and an improvement in their quality of life.

Acil, A., Dogan, S. and Dogan, O. - The effects of physical exercises [sic] to mental state and quality of life in patients with schizophrenia Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing December 2008, 15(10), 808-815

Can't remember what I forgot

A new book on memory loss - 'Can't remember what I forgot' by Sue Halpern - has highlighted the importance of exercise in helping to stave off memory loss. The book surveys the scientific progress - or lack thereof - in the hunt for a cure for Alzheimer's and concludes the 'one incontrovertible means of neurogenesis' is aerobic exercise. Exercise promotes new cell growth in old brains by increasing their blood volume and in turn cell growth improves memory. Exercise also increased the amount of brain-derived neurotrophic growth factor in the brain, again stimulating cell growth. Exercise was unable to prevent the growth of amyloid plaques, one of the main hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, but it did allow the brain to cope with them better.

You can read the New York Review of Books review of Can't Remember What I Forgot at

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22110?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=124186609&utm_campaign=December+4,+2008+issue&utm_term=Just+Remember+This

Exercise and mental health

Physical activity referral schemes (PARS) involve the referral of patients by health professionals (usually their GP) to a leisure provider so that they can undertake a programme of physical activity under the supervision of a qualified exercise professional. PARS have proliferated rapidly in the UK since their conception in the early nineties and are thought to be the most prevalent type of community-based physical activity programme. At the same time there has been an increasing interest in the role of physical activity in the prevention and treatment of mental-health problems and in the use of physical activity as a non-pharmacological treatment alternative. A study of 2,901 people participating in a PARS scheme between 2000 and 2003 compared the rates of referral, uptake and completion of people suffering from physical and mental illness. A similar percentage of people met up with a PARS coordinator (94% of people with a physical illness compared to 90% of people with a mental illness) but fewer people with mental-health problems (60% vs 69%) got as far as attending their first exercise sessions and fewer (22% vs 34%) completed their exercise programme.

Crone, Diane ... [et al] - Uptake and participation in physical activity referral schemes in the UK: an investigation of patients referred with mental-health problems Issues in Mental Health Nursing 2008, 29(10), 1088-1097

It really could be the little things that make you happy

Past research into happiness has shown that even after major life events such as accidents and lottery wins people's levels of happiness tend to return to their 'default settings' over the long term. However, studies by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that repeated 'doses' of less dramatic events can have an effect on people's happiness levels. People questioned after a religious service, a yoga class or a gym session were found to be happier than they had been before but it was also the case that the more services or gym classes a person attended the happier they were suggesting that these short-term boosts had a longer-term effect when repeated over time.

Mochon, D., Norton, M. and Ariely, D. - Getting off the hedonic treadmill, one step at a time: the impact of regular religious practice and exercise on well-being Journal of Economic Psychology 29(5), 632-642