Most studies into the difference that exercise makes to cognitive decline are retrospective, i.e. they look backwards in time, asking participants what their exercise habits were like in the past [so many] years, and tallying that against their cognitive health in the present.

Some studies are interventional, and those are most often 3, 6, or 12 months, depending on funding. In those cases, they make a hypothesis (e.g. this intervention will boost this measure of brain health) and then test it.

However, humans aren’t generally great at making short term decisions for long term gains. In other words: if it’s rainy out, or you’re a little pushed for time, you’re likely to take the car over walking regardless of what data point this adjusts in an overarching pattern that will affect your brain’s amyloid-β clean-up rates in 5–20 years time.

Nine days

The study we’re going to look at today was a 9-day observational study, using smartphone-based tracking with check-ins every 3½ hours, with participants reporting their physical activity as light, moderate, or intense (these terms were defined and exemplified, so that everyone involved was singing from the same songsheet in terms of what activities constitute what intensity).

The sample size was reasonable (n=204) and was generally heterogenous sample (i.e. varied in terms of sex, racial background, and fitness level) of New Yorkers aged 40–65.

So, the input variable was activity level, and the output variable was cognitive fitness.

As to how they measured the output, two brain games assessed:

1. cognitive processing speed, and
2. working memory (a proxy for executive function).

What they found:

1. participants active within the last 3½ hours had faster processing speed, equivalent to being four years younger
2. response times in the working memory (for: executive function) task reflected similar processing speed improvements, for participants active in the last 3½ hours

And, which is important to note,

❝This benefit was observed regardless of whether the activities they reported were higher intensity (e.g., running/jogging) or lower intensity (e.g., walking, chores).❞

~ Dr. Lizbeth Benson et al.

Source: Cognitive Health Benefits of Everyday Physical Activity in a Diverse Sample of Middle-Aged Adults

Practical take-away:

Move more often! At least every couple of hours (when not sleeping)!

The benefits will benefit you in the now, as well as down the line.

See also:

The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More

and, for that matter:

Do You Love To Go To The Gym? No? Enjoy These “No-Exercise Exercises”!

Take care!

Tick Tock… Goes the Death Clock?

This fun little test will ask a few questions about you and your lifestyle, and then make a prediction of your personal life expectancy, based on global statistics from the World Health Organisation.

And then the countdown starts… Literally, it generates a clock for you to see your life-seconds ticking away—this may or may not delight you, but it sure is a curiosity.

Their “Letters” page has a lot of reactions from people who just got their results (spoiler: people’s perspectives on life vary a lot)

Who mostly uses this service? According to their stats page, it’s mostly curious under-45s, with gradually less interest in knowing about it from 45 onwards… until the age of 70, when suddenly everyone wants to know about it again!

So Is It Possible To Pause The Clock On Aging? – Q&A Spotlight Interview

Life extension is sometimes viewed as the domain of the super-rich, and with less than half of Millennials (and almost none of Gen-Z) having retirement plans, often those of us who aren’t super-rich have more mundane (and immediate!) goals than living to 120.

And yet…

Middle class and working class life-extensionists do exist, even if not garnering the same media attention. We think that’s strange—after all, while the whimsies of the super-rich may be entertaining to read about, it’s not nearly as applicable to most people as more relatable stories:

• The twenty-something who gives up smoking and adds (healthier!) years to their life
• The thirty-something who adopts a plant-based diet and is less likely to die of heart disease
• The forty-something who stops drinking, and avoids health conditions and mishaps alike
• The fifty-something who reconsiders their health plan in light of their changing body
• The sixty-something who takes up yoga, or chess, or salsa dancing
• The seventy-something who gets asked what their secret is
• …and so on

But these are ideas, textbook examples. What if we make it more personal?

We interviewed 10 Almonds subscriber and longevity enthusiast Anastasia S., and here’s what she had to say:

Q: What does life extension mean to you, in your life?

A: To me, the key is healthy life extension. People often joke “I don’t want to live longer; the last years are the worst!” but they’re missing the point that after a certain age, those difficulties are coming whether they come at 50 or 70 or 90. Personally, I’d rather keep them at bay if I can.

Q: How do you do that?

A: Firstly, which won’t be a shock: good diet and exercise. Those two things are possibly the biggest active influences on my longevity. I’m vegan, which I don’t think is outright necessary for good health but done right, it can certainly be good. In this house we eat a lot of whole grains, beans, lentils, vegetables in general, nuts too. As for exercise, I do 30–60 minutes of Pilates daily; it’s nothing fancy and it’s just me in my pajamas at home, but it keeps me strong and fit and supple. I also walk everywhere; I don’t even own a car. Beyond that… I don’t drink or smoke (probably the biggest passive influences on my longevity, i.e., things that aren’t there to make it shorter), and I try to take my sleep seriously, making sure to schedule enough time and prepare properly for it.

Q: Take your sleep seriously? How so?

A: Good “sleep hygiene” as some call it—I schedule a little wind-down time before sleep, with no glaring screens or main lights, making a space between my busy day and restful sleep, kicking anything requiring brainpower to the morning, and making a conscious choice not to think more about those things in the meantime. I take care to make my sleeping environment as conducive as possible to good sleep too; I have a good mattress and pillows, I make sure the temperature is cool but cosy. I have a pot of herbal tea on my bedside table—I hydrate a lot.

Q: Do you take any supplements?

A: I do! They’re mostly quite general though, just “covering my bases”, so to speak. I take a daily nootropic stack (a collection of supplements specifically for brain health), too. I buy them in bulk, so they don’t cost so much.

Q: This seems quite a healthy lifestyle! Do you have any vices at all?

A: I definitely drink more coffee than I probably should! But hey, nobody’s perfect. I do love coffee, though, and as vices go, it’s probably not too bad.

Q: How’s it all working out for you? Do you feel younger?

A: I’m 38 and sometimes I feel like a teenager; sometimes I feel like an old lady. But the latter is usually for social reasons, not health-related reasons. I do have streaks of gray in my hair though, and I love that! If people don’t notice my grays, then they often think I’m in my 20s, rather than pushing 40. A little while back, I was stopped in the street by someone wanting to sell me a change of household utilities provider, then she stopped herself mid-sentence and said “Oh but wait, you look a bit too young, never mind”. Most general metrics of health would put me in my 20s.

Q: That’s interesting that you love your gray hairs, for someone who wants to stay young; is it an exception?

A: It’s more that I want to minimize the problems that come with age, and not everything’s a problem. Gray hairs are cool; joint pain, not so much. A long life rich with experiences is cool; memory loss, not so much. So, I try to keep healthy, and wear my years as best I can.

Q: Sounds good to us; good luck with it!

A: Thank you; I do my best!

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