Study and stairs rejuvenate the brain

Canadian researchers from Concordia University, working under the guidance of Dr. Jason Steffener, found that the more flights of stairs a person goes up and the more years he studies, the "younger" the physical indicators of his brain.

As part of the study, the authors performed magnetic resonance imaging of the brain of 331 healthy adults aged 19 to 79 years. Using the obtained images, they estimated the volume of gray matter of the participants. The age-related decrease in this part of the brain due to the death of neurons is a very "visible" component of the chronology of the aging process, so the authors used it as an indicator of the biological age of the brain.

After that, they compared the volume of the brain with various parameters. After analyzing the collected data, it turned out that significant prognostic factors of a lower biological age of the brain compared to the chronological age of the analyzed parameters are only the number of flights of stairs that a person passes up every day, and the number of completed years of training.

On average, each year of training rejuvenates the brain by 0.95 years, while each daily rise to one floor reduces its age by 0.58 years.

The authors note that, unlike other types of physical activity, almost all elderly people are able to climb stairs at least once a day. And the results obtained by the authors are very encouraging, as they demonstrate that such simple activity has great potential in maintaining brain health.

Article by Jason Steffener et al. Differences between chronological and brain age are related to education and self-reported physical activity published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Concordia University: Want a younger brain? Stay in school — and take the stairs.

11.03.2016