

How Exercise Boosts Your Brain - jamesbritt
http://singularityhub.com/2010/08/05/exercise-boosts-your-brain-%e2%80%93-here%e2%80%99s-how/

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DavidSJ
_So the next time you sit down to watch television, or, um, surf the internet,
remember: your BMP count might be getting into dangerous territory._

Try to imagine that same sentence with "to read a book" substituted for "to
watch television, or, um, surf the internet". Hard, isn't it?

This is anti-technology bigotry. Pretty surprising at singularityhub.com, huh?
That's how pervasive it is.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
I would assume they picked the examples _because_ it's singularityhub. Most of
their readers are likely to be technology/gadget centric and a message about
more tech centric activities was probably expected to resonate better than a
message about something as "old fashioned" as reading a book.

Beside, be honest. What percentage of the population do you think actually
spends _more_ time reading books than watching TV and surfing the internet?

BTW: According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, watching TV accounted for
more than half the total leisure time for Americans 15 years and older.
(<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm>)

~~~
johngunderman
I used to. I don't watch TV, but I probably spend too much time on the
computer. Just a few years ago I would read more than any other activity.

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tomjen3
I must have seen a million of these "benefits of exercise" posts by now -
everybody seems to think that exercise is a good thing, but making another
post isn't going to change anything, people are still not going to exercise;
making a drug that simulates the effects of exercise would change everything.

So why aren't people working on that?

~~~
orangecat
_So why aren't people working on that?_

I would hope they are. Of course if something like that actually comes out
there will be lots of pushback from those with overdeveloped Protestant work
ethics. No pain no gain, it's "cheating" to just take a pill, etc.

~~~
galdosd
Oh, but the situation is even worse than that-- the Protestant work ethic
already caught you (or us, or many people, whatever).

I'm talking about the assumption that exercise is some sort of pain for gain
tradeoff that you would suffer through in exchange for a later reward, but is
itself unpleasant or undesirable without the health benefits. This insiduous
paradigm seems to be everywhere in (at least) American culture.

And so the magic pill already exists! And there's no patent. No copay. No HMO
can deny you it. And it's fun!

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lukifer
Heart health is brain health. Simple as that.

~~~
mrj
Well, as a brief mention said in the article, any exercise benefit to the
brain used to be thought of mainly as an increased blood flow and oxygen
uptake.

But more recent research is focused on the hippocampus and neurogenesis,
actually growing new neurons by exercising. Unfortunately, there's no test
that can actually prove the new cells are responsible for new learning.

This happens to be the focus of my current research paper. :-)

~~~
cynest
Cool. So might the new neurons be more for motor control than say,
mathematics?

~~~
mrj
Well, the hippocampus is related to long term memory and not motor control, as
I understand it. So it's doubtful.

I'm having a hard time finding studies that adequately control for fitness
level though. Most tend to focus on acute exercise. They run people for a
while then immediately sit them down for a cognition test.

I'm more interested in the influence of long-term fitness level. That's not as
often studied.

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palish
_We all know exercise is your best shot at having a healthy heart, a strong
immune system, and maybe even a 100th birthday party._

Wasn't this just recently proved false (here on HN)? The sentence may as well
read "We all know the sun orbits the Earth" or "We all know that you have to
write real programs in C".

Or rather, if you spend most of your day sitting behind a computer, then it
doesn't matter how much you exercise, you'll likely be dead by eighty. (Which
is quite a liberating viewpoint if you simply accept it.)

~~~
dreaming
In the context of the benefits of exercise, i'd imagine we need to be careful
not to conflate health and longevity before we debate things being 'proved
false'.

Also, obligatory [Citation required]

~~~
palish
_Proved_ was the wrong choice. _Implicated_ is probably more accurate.

But really, there was some article very recently that made all the same
points.

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moonhorse
Another theory is that low calorie diet leads to longevity. Too many theories.
:)

~~~
pjscott
It's good that we have a lot of observed correlations between various
activities (exercise, low-calorie diets, etc.) and longevity. That way we can
figure out what's going on biologically, and try to find easier and more
effective ways of living longer, healthier lives. Science!

