Working out is beneficial to human in all the following ways EXCEPT

M: This morning on Today’s Health, we are going to pump you up. You know, [1A] working out is obviously good for your body, but this week’s Newsweek Magazine reports there is new evidence [1BD] it can boost your brainpower and fight disease as well. Miriam Nelson is an associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University. Miriam, nice to see you, how are you doing?
W: Very well. Thanks for having me.
M: So, we are talking about rigorous, aerobic exercise, clearly good for your body. Explain to me in layman’s terms if you can now, about this new research that says it can also help your brain grow new nerve cells.
W: That’s right. What we’ve known for years is that [2A] individuals who are physically active have reduced risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease. We’ve also known that [2B] people with mild cognitive impairment also have improved function with exercise. There’s some very new research just come out that is very exciting. And what is seen is it’s taken 11 individuals, and put them on a about 3- or 4-month course of aerobic exercise — 4 days a week, an hour. And what they’ve seen through MRI Scan is people are actually growing new nerve cells.
M: And, and more new nerve cells means what to me, someone in my age group?
W: Yeah, my age group, too.
M: OK, our age group too, right.
W: What we are seeing is that the new nerve cells are growing. They’re increasing a web and they’re weaved and they’re connecting. It’s all the interconnections of the nerve cells. [2D] When you get those connections, your brain functions better, [2C] primarily this is in the executive functioning part of the brain in the hippocampus. We are looking at multitasking, memory, problem solving, name recognition — lots of things that start to decline as we get older.
M: I am sure a lot of people are watching this right now. Miriam Nelson. Can I make up for lost time? I don’t have a history of exercising throughout my life. Now at 45, 50 years old, if I start exercising now, do I make a difference?
W: Well, certainly. The data we show right now that exercising in your 40s and 50s, hopefully we want to start a little bit early, [3] but in your 30s, 40s and 50s, it will make a difference for reducing the risk of getting Alzheimer as you get older. And there’s even newer research with children that is also very exciting.
M: Let me switch gears now and turn into the subject of the connection between rigorous exercise and preventing breast cancer. A study showed that there was a drop between 26 and 40 percent even if you take the lower end of that spectrum. That is significant.
W: It’s a very large decrease. So, one of the first studies with the Nurse’s Health Study followed 3,000 people for 14 years and they saw between a 26 to 40 percent decrease in death and recurrence in individuals who already had breast cancer. This newest study, [4] the California Teacher Study, followed 110,000 women from the earlier mid-90s up until 2002 and they saw that the women that were exercising the most had the greatest reduction in breast cancer, as you said, about 31 percent, about 5 hours a week.
M: What about the impact of exercise on estrogen positive cancers?
W: We’ve always thought that it was through some kind of hormone, because when you exercise, you have lower levels of it. So we thought that was a reason that you got the decrease.
M: So to wrap things up, [5] for a woman who gets a diagnosis of breast cancer, does it make sound the first thing you would tell that woman to do, go out and start exercising?
W: [5] Well, see your doctor and get a very good medical team and then make sure that exercise is an adjunct to that, and the research that we are doing at the Friedman School is showing that we can get a lot of people exercising, so, it’s really important for your brain as well as your body, reducing your risk of breast cancer. And as a woman with a history of Alzheimer in my family, I am certainly going to keep exercising.
M: A lot of people are going to pay attention to it. Professor Miriam Nelson, thanks! Good to have you here.
W: Thank you very much.