Slow Aging with Exercise!

According to the article "How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit" by Gretchen Reynolds in The New York Times's Well Blog, a recent study shows that even the slightest activity--like cooking, gardening, or walking-- at an older age can slow dementia's progress. Greater activity can be even more helpful:

"If an inactive 70-year-old is heading toward dementia at 50 miles per hour, by the time she’s 75 or 76, she’s speeding there at 75 miles per hour,” said Jae H. Kang, an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study. “But the active 76-year-olds in our study moved toward dementia at more like 50 miles per hour.” Walking and other light activity had bought them, essentially, five years of better brainpower.


If dementia can be slowed by exercise, one doctor says in the article, then this will greatly alter the aging process.