Exercise is touted as multifaceted tonic for the body, given not only the disease-preventing physical health benefits, but the management of mental health maladies as well. Covering everything from obesity and heart disease to depression and anxiety, aerobic exercise functions to mitigate various conditions by addressing all or some of the complications associated with them.
However, recent research has now shown that aerobic exercise has a much wider range as to the medical conditions it’s able to treat.
Parkinson’s disease can be regarded as a meeting of variety of mental and physical conditions, in that the decline in normal function is not only seen in the slowing of physical abilities such as locomotion or posture, but also in brain function, evidenced through amnesia and/or dementia. It is with this particular disease that researchers found that aerobic exercise was able to actually improve cognition better than goal-based training, which involved specific exercises involving bodyweight resistance and general motor programming.
The researchers elaborated through citing other previously conducted studies on endurance work that their findings were likely attributed to the fact that aerobic exercise activated and increased functionality of parts of the brain essential to basic cognition, along with upregulating neural growth factors.
Why is this important? This simply reinforces the concept that aerobic exercise should be considered as part of a medicinal prescription for those who are able. There is widespread evidence to suggest that general movement, and specifically extended durations of aerobic activity is a naturally derived tool for the treatment and prevention of the various diseases that threaten the normal functions of the body.
The integration of effective aerobic exercise in the treatment of medical ailments is a branch of the industry that shifts the focus from traditional methods (pharmaceuticals only), and can expand towards a near non-invasive approach of treating and preventing certain diseases, which in a world plagued with a rising cost of existence, is something we desperately need.
https://doi-org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/10.1016/j.bandc.2018.01.002
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