David PerlmutterPresident,, Perlmutter Health Center · Board-Certified Neurologist | Functional Medicine Pioneer | #1 New York Times Best-Selling Author | International Speaker | Host of The Empowering Neurologist Podcast

Physical Activity and Brain Function - Exercise Your Way To A Better Memory

9 Nov 2014 · 3 min

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2:56

In this presentation, Dr. David Perlmutter reviews a randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) titled “Effect of Physical Activity on Cognition in Older Adults at Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease.” The study enrolled 138 participants aged 50 and older who reported mild memory complaints (e.g., forgetting why they entered a room, misplacing keys, forgetting Wi‑Fi codes). Participants were randomly assigned to either an aerobic exercise program or a passive control group. The exercise regimen consisted of approximately 142 minutes per week (about 20 minutes per day). Over an 18‑month follow‑up, the control group showed a significant decline in cognitive performance, while the exercise group demonstrated modest improvements in brain function, as reflected in performance measures and the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale‑Cognitive (ADAS‑Cog) scores. The authors concluded that adding roughly 142 minutes of aerobic exercise per week modestly improves cognition in older adults with subjective and objective memory impairment. Dr. Perlmutter emphasizes that aerobic exercise activates genes that promote neurogenesis in the hippocampus—the brain’s memory center—linking the trial’s findings to his earlier work in “Grain Brain.” He frames aerobic exercise as a simple, powerful medical intervention for memory enhancement.

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Well, I've got some exciting news for you. Science has now discovered an actual medical treatment that can improve memory, and it was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Let's have a look. This is a study that's entitled Effect of Physical Activity on Cognition, or Cognitive Function, in Older Adults at Risk for Alzheimer's Disease. And what the study did was it looked at 138 participants who were 50 years of age or older, and these are all people who were complaining of mild memory dysfunction. What does that mean? That means walking into a room and forgetting why, you can't find your keys, you don't remember the Wi-Fi code, and all of these things that seemingly raise a red flag. And here's what the study actually demonstrated. So what they did was they took these individuals and they were randomized To either a group that exercised or a group that remained fairly passive. And they had these individuals do 142 minutes of exercise each week. And that's, you know, a daily exercise routine of around 20 minutes. So don't let the 142 minutes put you off. And in this first chart, you'll see that those individuals in the control group who didn't exercise, this is a measurement of their brain performance over 18 months. And I think it's clear that these individuals had a significant decline in their brain performance as opposed to the group that exercised, as you see in the top curve, they actually gained brain function. And in this next slide, very interesting, if you look at what is called the change in their Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale rating of cognition, the group that actually did the exercise actually demonstrated improvement again in their assessment scale and how their brains were working, the authors concluded, and I quote, in summary, the results of this randomized trial indicate that a physical program of an additional 142 minutes of exercise per week on average modestly improved cognition relative to controls in older adults with subjective and objective memory impairment. This is a very important study. This is really one of the first studies to demonstrate that an intervention can actually improve memory. And what is this intervention? It is nothing more than aerobic exercise. We now understand, as I wrote about in Grain Brain, that aerobic exercise actually turns on the genes that allows your brain to grow new brain cells specifically in the memory center. That's powerful medicine. I'm Dr. David Perlmutter.