Faithful readers of New York Times health columnist Gretchen Reynolds probably know that she has several times extolled the brain benefits of exercise. Now comes Reynolds with some less than great news: those benefits may not last. Reynolds cites a new study from researchers at the University of Maryland that took 12 competitive long distance runners between the ages of 50 and 80 and asked them not to exercise for 10 days. After 10 days of doing nothing, the runners returned to the lab and repeated tests that had been done previously, measuring blood flow in the brain. Yikes! As Reynolds reports, “The results showed striking changes in blood flow now. Much less blood streamed to most of the areas in the runners’ brains, and the flow declined significantly to both the left and right lobes of the hippocampus.” The good news, says Reynolds, is that the athletes did not perform noticeably worse now on the tests of cognitive function than they had at the start. And the researchers assume that blood flow will return to normal when they started training again.
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