January 2013

More evidence that keeping moving is good for your brain as well as your body: A Scottish study of 700 people reports that those who were most physically active at age 70 had greater brain volumes when tested with MRI scans three years later. Physical activity was also associated with more “gray matter” in the brain and lower volume of lesions in the brain’s "white matter." Publishing their findings in Neurology, researchers added that they found “no support for a beneficial effect of more intellectually challenging or socially oriented activities.” Before you toss the crossword puzzles, though, they also suggested such leisure activities might be effective earlier in the brain-aging process.