Could a program designed for athletes help reduce age-related mental and physical decline in older adults?

It is no secret that we need at least a moderate exercise regime to stay independent, recover from illness and reduce the risk of disease in our golden years.

Now researchers from the UK and Spain say a combined mental and physical exercise program could significantly improve brain function and physical performance in older adults, saving them from falls and risks of other accidents in the future.

The combined mental and physical exercise program is called Brain Endurance Training (BET) and is currently used on elite athletes for improved mental and physical endurance but the researchers claim the program could lead the way to improved health in later life.

Lead author of the research study, Professor Professor Chris Ring explained that participants who followed the Brain Endurance Training (BET) program performed better in both mental and physical metrics compared to others who followed an exercise-only program and the control group.

“We have shown that BET could be an effective intervention to improve cognitive and physical performance in older adults, even when fatigued,” Ring said.

“This could have significant implications for improving health span in this population, including reducing the risk of falls and accidents.”

While past studies have shown that mental fatigue can impair both cognitive and physical performance, researchers say it was the first time that a Brain Endurance Training (BET) program was trialed on older adults.

Participants in the study were made up of 24 women aged between 65-78 years old, who were relatively healthy but lived a sedentary lifestyle.

They were then separated into three groups, the first group who participated in an exercise-only program, the second group who followed the BET program, and a control group who did not exercise. The participants’ results were recorded over an eight week period.

The BET group out performed the exercise group in both mental ability and showed a 7.8 per cent increase in cognitive performance and a 29.9 per cent improvement in physical ability.

Meanwhile, the exercise-only participants only achieved a 4.5 percent increase in cognitive skill and 22.4 per cent increase in physical performance.

Although Professor Ring admitted there were limitations to the study, the results were encouraging and could help determine future care for this age group.

“While we still need to extend our research to include larger sample sizes including both men and women, these promising initial findings show we should do more to encourage older people to engage in BET to improve brain and body activities,” Ring said.

While this latest study found that BET can improve mental and physical metrics, researchers closer to home have discovered that physical activity can also help slow down the ageing process in our brains.

In their research, scientists discovered that exercise greatly affects how genes are expressed in microglia, the immune cells that help the brain function. They observed that exercise can make older microglia behave more like young ones in terms of gene activity.

The discovery was made by a research team led by Associate Professor Jana Vukovic from UQ’s School of Biomedical Sciences and Queensland Brain Institute and Dr Solal Chauquet from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience who examined how genes were expressed in individual brain cells of mice.

“We found that ageing significantly alters the gene expression of all cell types in the brain but had greatest impact on the microglia, which are immune cells of the central nervous system that support brain function,” Dr Vukovic said.

Additionally, they noticed that giving mice access to a running wheel stopped or decreased the appearance of T cells in the hippocampus as they aged. These immune cells aren’t usually found in the brain when animals are young, but their numbers go up with age.

Dr Vukovic said the research could lead to the development of therapies that could “combat ageing of the brain”.

“Our findings in mice provide a platform for research into the human brain and ageing,” she said.

“Further research could eventually develop therapeutic ways to target specific cell types to combat ageing of the brain.”