(25-05-13) How Exercise Can Moderate Brain Damage Caused by Drinking

By Dr. Mercola

It’s well known that chronic, heavy drinking damages your brain and actually
speeds up the brain shrinkage that occurs with age. This is associated with
memory loss, symptoms of dementia and cognitive decline.

Physical exercise is touted as one of the key ways to protect against brain
shrinkage and other age-related brain changes, and now it appears it may help
protect against some of the brain damage caused by drinking.

Exercise May Help Protect Your Brain From Alcohol-Related Damage

Among 60 long-time drinkers, those who were the most physically active had
less damaged white matter in their brains compared to those who were less
active.1 The white matter is considered the "wiring" of your brain's
communication system, and is known to decline in quality with age and heavy
alcohol consumption.

Although the study didn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship, the
researchers concluded that “exercise may protect WM [white matter] integrity
from alcohol-related damage,” continuing:2

“We cannot say whether exercise would necessarily improve white matter damage
in individuals with a history of heavy drinking.

However, our findings in combination with the many well-established positive
physiological and psychological benefits of aerobic exercise suggest that
aerobic exercise could be potentially helpful for individuals with history of
heavy alcohol use.”

Exercise Protects Your Brain From Shrinkage, Slows Cognitive Decline

One of the effects of chronic heavy drinking is that it speeds the shrinkage
of key regions in your brain. Exercise is useful in this area, as research has
shown that people who engaged in the most physical exercise showed the least
amount of brain shrinkage, a protective effect that was even greater than that
offered by mentally stimulating activities.3

Exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity by causing nerve
cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections and protecting them
from damage.

During exercise, nerve cells release proteins known as neurotrophic factors,
such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF, which activates brain stem
cells to convert into new neurons. BDNF also triggers numerous other chemicals
that promote neural health.

Scientific evidence shows that physical exercise helps you build a brain that
not only resists shrinkage, but also increases cognitive abilities.4 In one
review of more than 100 studies, both aerobic and resistance training were
found to be important for maintaining cognitive and brain health in old age.5

Moderate exercise may even reverse normal brain shrinkage by 2 percent,
effectively reversing age-related hippocampus degeneration, which is associated
with dementia and poor memory, by one to two years.6 On the other hand, the
people in the control group who didn't exercise saw an average of 1.4 percent
decrease in hippocampus size.

Exercise is a Powerful Tool for Brain Health for Drinkers and Non-Drinkers
Alike

The hippocampus region of your brain increases in size as a response to
exercise, making this activity a powerful tool to fight the onset of
Alzheimer's disease. The hippocampus, which is considered the memory center of
your brain, is the first region of your brain to suffer shrinkage and
impairment at the onset of Alzheimer's disease, leading to memory problems and
disorientation.

Other contributing factors to brain disease caused by the normal aging process
may also include a decrease in blood flow to your brain, and the accumulation
of environmental toxins in your brain. Exercise can help ameliorate both of
these conditions by increasing blood flow to your brain, thereby increasing
oxygen supply to your brain and encouraging a more vigorous release and removal
of accumulated toxins through better blood circulation.

If you’re a regular drinker, this becomes even more important, as alcohol is a
neurotoxin that can poison your brain. Increased blood flow may also promote
delivery of more of the nutrients necessary to keep your brain cells healthy in
the first place.

Brain Exercises are Better than Drugs in Preventing Cognitive Decline

Exercise has been shown to be better than mentally stimulating activities like
brain training exercises at protecting your brain, but mental “exercise” is
still important. In fact, new research shows it works better than drugs in
preventing cognitive decline. The analysis of 32 trials found that mental
exercise, such as computer-based brain training programs or memory, reasoning
and speed-processing exercises, protected against cognitive decline better than
leading dementia drugs like donepezil. Research into brain plasticity has
proven that your brain continues to make new neurons throughout life in
response to mental activity, which means that cognitive function can be
improved, regardless of your age, and cognitive decline can be reversed.

If you’re interested in mental exercises for your brain, Dr. Michael
Merzenich, professor emeritus at the University of California, who has
pioneered research in brain plasticity for more than 30 years, has been
instrumental in the development of a kind of "brain gym" environment — a
computer-based brain training program that can help you sharpen a range of
skills, from reading and comprehension to improved memorization and more. The
program is called Brain HQ.7

"There are some very useful exercises in there that are for free, and you can
actually drive improvements, for example, in brain speed, in the accuracy, with
which the brain represents information in detail," he says. "Basically, what
you're doing is reducing the chatter, the noisiness of the process of your
brain. That impacts your capacity, for example, to record that information, to
remember it. Because when the information is in its degraded form, when it's
fuzzy, when it's imprecise, all of the uses of it – like your brain makes
basically – are degraded."

In the above-mentioned study, those who used computer-based training programs
had significantly better memory and attention skills, improvements that were,
in some cases, retained even five years later.

Another Reason for Chronic Heavy Drinkers to Take Up Exercise

There’s little doubt that exercise is one of the most important aspects of
optimal health – not only for your brain but also for your entire body. That
said, if you or someone you love has been affected by alcohol abuse, you know
the great toll it can take on your personal relationships, work life and
ability to function normally on a day-to-day basis, let alone fit in regular
workouts.

The cravings for alcohol can become all-consuming and eventually an alcoholic
does not feel "normal" until they've had a drink. The alcohol abuse inevitably
throws off your circadian rhythm -- the normal times you eat, sleep and wake up
-- as well, leading to a downward spiral of health and emotional effects. When
you drink, it forces your brain to release unnaturally elevated levels of
dopamine, a chemical your brain associates with rewarding behaviors. When you
exercise, however, this same reward chemical is released, which means you can
get the same "buzz" from working out that you can get from a six-pack of beer,
with far better outcomes for your health.

This is why, if you know you're prone to alcohol abuse or have a family
history of alcohol addiction, exercising regularly can greatly reduce your risk
of becoming dependent.

For those already addicted, exercise is beneficial too, and may actually help
to lessen cravings. Research has found, in fact, that hamsters that ran the
most consumed less alcohol, while less active hamsters had greater cravings for
and consumption of alcohol.8 By replacing drinking with exercise, you may find
that the rewarding feeling you get from exercise provides you with a suitable
alternative to the rewarding feeling you previously got from alcohol.

What Type of Fitness Program is Best?

Ideally, to truly optimize your health, you'll want to strive for a varied and
well-rounded fitness program that incorporates a variety of exercises. As a
general rule, as soon as an exercise becomes easy to complete, you need to
increase the intensity and/or try another exercise to keep challenging your
body. I recommend incorporating the following types of exercise into your
program:

High-Intensity Interval (Anaerobic) Training: This is when you alternate short
bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods.
Strength Training: Rounding out your exercise program with a 1-set strength
training routine will ensure that you're really optimizing the possible health
benefits of a regular exercise program. You need enough repetitions to exhaust
your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer
than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It
is also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need
at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.
You can also "up" the intensity by slowing it down. For more information about
using super slow weight training as a form of high-intensity interval exercise,
please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff.
Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back,
abdomen and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement
throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and
support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury and help you
gain greater balance and stability. Exercise programs like Pilates and yoga are
also great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you
can learn from a personal trainer.
Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is active isolated stretching
developed by Aaron Mattes. With Active Isolated Stretching (AIS), you hold each
stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body's natural
physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of
muscle joints. This technique also allows your body to repair itself and
prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like the Power Plate to
help you stretch.


Source: www.drmercola.com

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