In case you needed another reason to bikecommute

[mtbxplorer]

"But the mice that were exercising had even healthier brains and better memory scores than the low-fat group — even if they had remained on a high-fat diet. In other words, exercise was “more effective than diet control in preventing high-fat diet-induced Alzheimer’s disease development,” the authors write."
from
Can Exercise Protect the Brain From Fatty Foods? - NYTimes.com

[Asmodeus2112]

Cool, let's hope it's true.

[nemhed]

Interesting article, thanks for link. What I want to know is were the mice and rats happy? Because everyone knows fat, dumb , and happy all go together. Seriously though, my mental health is so much better when my physical fitness and activity levels are high. I don't know why everyone doesn't get this. Benefits later in life are just another bonus!

[jmmorath]

It gets even better. I study neuroscience and teach it at the college level. While I don't study this specifically in my research, I study adjacent stuff. My research deals with cognitive benefits of being in nature (and what do we tend to do in nature?) Anyways...

We know that exercise also plays a critical role in dopamine production, particularly as it is involved in movement. Another reason exercise is good for memory is that the additional dopamine in motor control areas of the brain will in fact slow down other degenerative diseases like Parkinson's. The end of this PBS documentary discusses that point. FRONTLINE: my father, my brother, and me | PBS

Emotion and stress levels are known to play a key role in memory among lots of other things too. And as said already, exercise boosts happiness and lowers stress.