Your Muscles Are Secretly Helping Protect Your Brain with Dr. David Perlmutter
In this interview segment, Dr. David Perlmutter emphasizes that resistance training is often overlooked for its brain health benefits. He explains that age‑related loss of muscle mass, known as sarcopenia, is a significant threat because skeletal muscle secretes a variety of signaling molecules called myokines. These myokines travel throughout the body, acting like hormones, and reach the brain where they improve brain metabolism, reduce inflammation, enhance cerebral blood flow, and stimulate the production of factors that promote the growth of new neurons and synapses. By framing muscles as an endocrine organ comparable to the pituitary, adrenal, and thyroid glands, Dr. Perlmutter argues that maintaining muscle mass through resistance exercise is a crucial, under‑appreciated strategy for protecting brain health.
