Young and healthy brain — how to achieve it

Young and a healthy brain is closely related to muscle mass. Need another reason to hit the gym this winter? A new study of nearly 1,200 healthy middle-aged men and women finds that those with more muscle mass have younger brains.

A young, healthy brain — this is the topic that researchers in Chicago took up, writes xrust. Their work confirmed a general trend — that building and maintaining muscle mass as we age may be key to maintaining brain health.

The researchers also found that people with more fat in the deep belly have older-looking brains. This raises questions about the potential negative effects of certain types of fat on the brain and the importance of combining strength training with weight loss.

Why exercise is good for the brain
The idea that exercise is good for our brains is not new. Previous studies in rodents have shown that after exercise, animals' brains are buzzing with a neurochemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF.

It is sometimes called the «miracle fertilizer for the brain» because BDNF promotes the formation of new neurons. It is therefore not surprising that after exercise, the brains of mice and rats typically produce two to three times more connected cells than the brains of sedentary animals. In addition, animals that exercise perform well in intelligence tests.

And as in humans
People who exercise also show a significant increase in BDNF levels in the blood after exercise.

Other studies have shown that just 25 minutes of walking, biking, swimming or similar exercise per week can be strongly associated with increased brain volume in older adults, and even 3,000 steps a day can help slow cognitive decline in people at high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

However, most of this research has focused on aerobic exercise and the effects of endurance on the brain. Less research has focused on the role of muscle mass. Many questions also remain about the role of fatty tissue in brain health, especially the deep, inner fat around the belly known as visceral fat, which can increase inflammation throughout the body, potentially including the brain.

Is your brain young or old?
For the new study, scientists decided to look at the inside of human tissue and the brain using magnetic resonance imaging.

They looked at existing whole-body scan data from 1,164 healthy men and women between the ages of forty and sixty. To understand the risk of developing dementia, we need to focus on middle age. It is during midlife that we typically begin to develop—or avoid—most of the common risk factors for dementia later in life, making this a critical period to study.

Scientists used artificial intelligence to analyze scans and determine the total muscle mass and amount of fat in people's bodies. The fat was classified as visceral or subcutaneous, another type of fat located just under the skin.

Researchers determined the estimated age of the human brain using algorithms based on scans of tens of thousands of other brains. This made it possible to obtain benchmark indicators of the typical structure and volume of the brain for a person of any age. A person's brain could either match the benchmark for their chronological age or look like the brains of people younger or older. Older-looking brains are at increased risk of early cognitive decline.

Conclusion
The more muscle mass, the younger the brain looks, scientists have found. The more visceral fat, the older the brain appears. People with a particularly high ratio of visceral fat to muscle mass—that is, those with relatively high amounts of visceral fat and low muscle mass—tended to have older-looking brains.

Xrust A Young, Healthy Brain—How to Get It