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Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Exercise can prevent cognitive decline even when energy lags, researchers discover
Even on days when you're lagging in energy, exercise can give your brain a boost. That's according to researchers at the University of Missouri (Mizzou), who made a specific discovery about physical activity's brain benefits. The study, published in the journal Physiology, examined what happens to the brains of individuals who have limited ketone production in the liver. Dancing Can Help Relieve Cancer-related Side Effects, Early Data Shows When the body is low on glucose, its usual fuel, the liver produces ketones, which help generate energy and power the brain, according to the study's press release. These molecules support cognitive memory, learning and overall brain health. Read On The Fox News App Even when the liver cannot produce enough ketones, exercise helps compensate for this loss, potentially reversing some cognitive decline, the researchers found. This is especially prevalent as people age and face a higher risk of conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. Dementia Risk Connected To Cannabis-related Hospital Visits, Says Study These findings are also promising for those who have liver conditions that prevent the body from producing ketones. Lead study co-researcher R. Scott Rector, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Medicine and director of the NextGen Precision Health Building, commented on the study in an interview with Fox News Digital, noting that the body's natural production of ketones is important for keeping the brain healthy. "It helps maintain memory, learning abilities, and the health of the brain's energy factories (mitochondria)," he said. "Exercise can still protect the brain even when the liver isn't making ketones, which might be relevant to individuals with liver disease, which causes reduced ketone production." These findings were surprising to the researchers, according to Rector, who expected that exercise might not improve brain health when ketone production was limited. "However, it seems exercise has backup pathways that enhance brain health, even when ketone production is compromised," he said. Another lead researcher, Taylor Kelty, a postdoctoral fellow in Rector's lab, noted that previous research has begun to show the link between severe liver dysfunction and a high risk of dementia. "If ketone production in the liver is disrupted, it could be a potential cause of cognitive decline, ultimately leading to conditions like dementia," Kelty said in the press release. These findings reinforce exercise's role in keeping people "mentally sharp," as well as being a "key piece of the puzzle in preserving brain health as we age," according to the researcher. Click Here To Sign Up For Our Health Newsletter Rector noted that exercise activates "many other pathways" in the liver that could also help the brain, although that wasn't a focus of this study. "In the future, we need to study these other molecules and backup systems that still boost brain health," he said to Fox News Digital. "Exercise's brain health benefits are particularly important for those who have liver conditions like MASLD (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease)," Rector added. "Scientists are finding more and more evidence that liver health affects brain diseases like Alzheimer's disease," he said. "Our findings suggest that taking care of the liver and understanding ketone metabolism could be a new way to help prevent or slow down brain diseases." For more Health articles, visit The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health as part of the NIH Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity article source: Exercise can prevent cognitive decline even when energy lags, researchers discover
Malay Mail
26-04-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
Can working out save your memory? New study links physical activity to better brain resilience
LONDON, April 27 — It's well established that exercise is good for our bodies, but what about our brains? A new American study, published in the Journal of Physiology, suggests that physical activity could play a key role in preserving our mental capacities, even when one of the brain's key energy sources isn't available. This study focuses on a little-known mechanism: the production of ketones. These organic compounds are produced by the liver when the body is subjected to fasting, a low-carb diet or poorly controlled diabetes. Ketones then serve as an alternative energy source, particularly for the brain, when glucose is in short supply. Under normal circumstances, when glucose reserves are depleted, the liver takes over, generating these compounds that support essential brain functions such as memory and learning, while helping to maintain good brain health. But what happens if the liver becomes unable to perform this function? This is precisely the question that researchers at the University of Missouri, Columbia, set out to answer. By artificially limiting ketone production in a number of volunteers, they observed a clear drop in cognitive performance. However, the subjects who took part in regular physical activity showed astonishing resilience: exercise seemed to overcome the metabolic impairment and restore, at least in part, memory and learning capacity. Fuel for the brain In other words, exercise alone could compensate for this metabolic deficit and enable the partial restoration of cognitive functions. 'Going into the study, we thought that with fewer ketones and the cognitive impairments that causes, exercise may not be able to overcome that impairment. But it seems like exercise is so powerful that there are other mechanisms going on in the brain that allow it to circumvent those impairments and still receive the benefits from exercise,' explains Taylor Kelty, study coauthor and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Missouri, quoted in a news release. This offers a promising avenue of exploration, particularly for people with liver disease, who are often unable to produce these ketones. This link between liver and brain, still largely unexplored, could well prove to be an essential pathway in the fight against cognitive decline, whether linked to age or certain pathologies. Indeed, research suggests that patients experiencing severe liver dysfunction are at greater risk of dementia. Ultimately, the study highlights the importance of ketone production on brain health and the impact physical activity can have on staying mentally sharp. 'This study highlights how exercise benefits the body in a multitude of ways, even when we don't fully understand all the molecular mechanisms involved. Even when we remove a single pathway, exercise is doing so many other things that it can help mitigate those deficiencies,' says R. Scott Rector, a professor in the School of Medicine. Exercise could be much more than just an ally for the heart and muscles. It could also prove to be a real booster for memory and mental alertness, paving the way for the consideration of physical activity as a key factor in brain health. — ETX Studio
