A new study led by the University of Sydney in Australia in collaboration with the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) at the University of New South Wales and the University of Adelaide suggests that stronger muscles may not just be essential for the body physically speaking, but can also lead to better brain function and trigger an improved mental health.
The study included 100 people whose age is between 55 to 86 years old. All of these participants had known problems of mild memory and thinking problems or considered as persons with mild cognitive impairment including patients with higher risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
Newsmax Health reports that as results were published last October 24 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, it was found that the respondents of the said study had actually went through series of training that happened twice a week for six months. After which, it has showed that 80 percent of their maximum strength had also significantly improved their mental function and abilities. The benefits of the said experiment allegedly last for a year even after their supervised weight-lifting sessions has already ended.
Study lead author, Yorgi Mavros, of the faculty of health sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia has also claimed that through the collaborative efforts of their team regarding the follow up study, they were able to find out that the improvement in mental functions is basically related to their muscle gains. In one of their university press release, Mavros added that the stronger people became, the greater the benefit for their brain.
According to Medical News Today, it has been found that exercise indirectly helps in preventing the onset signs and symptoms of certain illnesses like the Alzheimer's disease and also decreases the probability of a person from developing future risks of cognitive impairment. Furthermore, it has long been suggested that exercise helps with the internal processes of the body such as sugar regulation, improving cardiovascular health and also improves other mental processes such as selective attention, planning, organizing and as well as multitasking.
