Exercise Keeps Your Brain From Shrinking as You Age
Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast
Dr. Eric Berg
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2021
⏱️ 4 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this podcast, we’re going to talk about why exercise keeps your brain from shrinking as you age.
A randomized controlled trial on 120 older adults found that there’s an increase in the volume of the front part of the hippocampus when doing aerobic exercise.
This is the part of the brain that controls spatial memory—your ability to remember locations and understand where you are in relation to other locations. The hippocampus is one of the only parts of the brain that can regenerate.
Exercise also increases blood flow to the hippocampus.
Exercise also caused an increase in BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in the hippocampus. This helps regrow the brain.
What causes the brain to shrink?
• Aging
• Stress
• High blood sugar
What helps you avoid brain shrinkage?
• Exercise
• Intermittent fasting
• Vitamin B1
In summary, exercise, intermittent fasting, and maintaining healthy nutrient levels are some of the best things you can do to help avoid brain shrinkage as you age.
DATA: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
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Dr. Eric Berg DC Bio:
Dr. Berg, 51 years of age is a chiropractor who specializes in weight loss through nutritional & natural methods. His private practice is located in Alexandria, Virginia. His clients include senior officials in the U.S. government & the Justice Department, ambassadors, medical doctors, high-level executives of prominent corporations, scientists, engineers, professors, and other clients from all walks of life. He is the author of The 7 Principles of Fat Burning.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Dr. Berg's Healthy Keto and Interminate Fasting podcast, where Dr. Berg takes you on the journey for the truth about getting healthy and losing healthy weight. |
| 0:12.0 | You know, exercise is good for a lot of different things, but it's actually very good to prevent |
| 0:27.4 | the shrinkage of your brain as you get older. |
| 0:30.3 | Now there was a study that I'm going to put down below that was based on 120 older adults |
| 0:34.6 | doing aerobic exercise, randomized control study. And this is what they found. |
| 0:40.3 | They found there was an increase in the volume that's the front part of your hippocampus. |
| 0:46.3 | Now what is the hippocampus? This is the part of the brain that is in control of spatial navigation or spatial memory. Your ability to remember locations and understand |
| 0:59.0 | where you are in relationship to something else. So if they put you in one of those mazes |
| 1:04.0 | that they have, you're going to have a heck of a time trying to find your way out of that. |
| 1:07.0 | So certain birds that fly south during the winter have huge hippocampus structures to allow |
| 1:14.8 | them to navigate. So that's one tiny thing that the hippocampus does, but it does other things too |
| 1:19.7 | related to memory. Also exercise will increase blood flow to your hippocampus. Now the hippocampus is one of the |
| 1:26.4 | few areas of the brain that can |
| 1:29.3 | regenerate. Most of the brain cannot regenerate, but the hippocampus can, and that's involved with |
| 1:36.0 | memory, so that's the good news. All right, and then we have an increase in BDNF in the hippocampus. |
| 1:41.9 | It stands for brain-derived neurotrophic factors, and that's the thing |
| 1:47.3 | that helps regrow the brain. And exercise will stimulate that in the hippocampus. Exercise will also |
| 1:54.6 | increase the volume of the prefrontal cortex. That's involved in decision-making and thinking. So exercise can help you with that. |
| 2:03.8 | All right. So now what shrinks the brain? Age, stress, and having high blood sugars. So in this |
| 2:11.3 | video, my intention is just to make you aware that exercise can prevent the loss of volume of your brain. And if you combine exercise with |
| 2:21.2 | intermittent fasting and vitamin B1 from nutritional yeast, I think you'll have a really good plan |
| 2:27.9 | to keep your brain at the size it needs to be as you age. Hey before you go real quick I have a course entitled |
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