
Leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous system health - yasp
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/06/07/neuroscience-leg-exercise-brain-nervous-system-health/
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colechristensen
This is pretty stupid.

"Leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous system health" is the title but
what they actually did is hang a mouse by it's tail for a month.

I guess doing strange things to rodents and measuring the outcomes is useful,
but going so far as to turn it into health advice for humans is absurd.

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imjk
Are you referencing the actual study? The article states, “The study involved
restricting mice from using their hind legs, but not their front legs, over a
period of 28 days.”

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colechristensen
Yes. They achieve those restrictions by holding up the mouse by the tail so
only the front legs are on the floor of the cage.

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mamon
Which makes the whole study bullshit because what they actually measured was
effects of stress not of the lack of leg exercise

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bcheung
They also didn't control for other muscles so who's to say that it is specific
to leg exercise, or even, sedentary life, living life at a 45 degree incline,
too much blood flowing to the brain, or any other factor.

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rebuilder
I'm all for barbell squats and deadlifts, but I have to point out that there's
a difference between saying "leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous
system health" and "mice restricted from using their hind legs exhibit lower
numbers of neural stem cells".

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stochastic_monk
You’re not wrong; the full write up (and the researcher’s quote in particular)
makes a much more nuanced statement than the title does. I do wonder if these
conclusions are ill-founded, though. Otherwise wouldn’t people who lose a limb
or use thereof suffer from extreme neurodegeneration?

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stevenwoo
My non scientific opinion is that the way they made the mice not be able to
use their rear limbs (suspension of the mice by the tail attached to fixure on
ceiling of cage) might have only shown measureable stress levels via blood
sample in 6 percent of mice studied but that had to have some other
psychological impact on all the mice - if we did that to humans at least we
could tell human subjects what was going to happen, I am not arguing that mice
have the same cognitive abilities as humans.

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bcheung
Not one instance of the word "leg" in the paper.

They were basically lifted off the ground with only their front legs touching
the ground.

How does one go from load bearing exercise to just leg exercise?

There's no evidence in the paper to suggest that legs have some special
quality over other load bearing muscles.

Bad journalism.

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gassiss
If anyone found this article interesting I'm sure they'll find this podcast
also very interesting:

[https://shruggedcollective.com/3-things-you-dont-know-
about-...](https://shruggedcollective.com/3-things-you-dont-know-about-
muscle/)

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rpowers
I've read that our lymphatic system needs muscle movement to properly
circulate. Is it possible that leg movement has a positive lymphatic response?
Could it be that better lymphatic systems == better nervous system health?

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valarauca1
blatantly p hacking

