Reduce Healthcare Costs

Reduce Healthcare Costs with Exercise

Julia Basso – PhD It’s that spooky time of year, and surely something’s scary…healthcare costs in the United States.  Countries around the world spend on average 9% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on health care.  From this graph, which represents the healthcare costs per capita as a percentage of the GDP, you can see

Exercise Increases Neurons in the Brain

Julia Basso – PhD Adult neurogenesis (i.e., the birth of new neurons in the adult brain) is a big thing in neuroscience.  For a long time, neuroscientists thought that new neurons emerged only during stages of early development.  In the 1960s, the discovery that new neurons continue to be born in the adult brain was

Endocannabinoids

Thoughts From Grayson: Endocannabinoids

Grayson Fertig Thoughts From Grayson: Endocannabinoids Dear Fasttwitchgrandmas, Let’s say the article Dr. Julia Basso wrote caught your eye-Endocannabinoids: The Secret to Why Exercise Makes Us Feel So Good. And this idea or feeling of an exercise high made you say I want that. Well then what’s next? Maybe for some you’re already there whereas

Muscle Function

Improve Muscle Function: Osteocalcin

Julia Basso – PhD As we age, cognitive decline is a problem that many of us face.  Though pharmacological interventions do not currently exist to help fix this issue, exercise has been shown to improve the way our brains function and therefore how we think and feel.  However, an inherent problem to the “just exercise”

Functional Decline in Aging: Exercise and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS)

Julia Basso – PhD Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are naturally occurring, volatile molecules located within our bodies and brains.  They are also known as free radicals because they contain a “free” electron that is available to pair with another electron, thus giving them their volatile qualities.  ROS include oxygen, peroxide, and hydrogen peroxide, to name

Exercise and Ketones

Will Exercise Help the Brain Grow: Exercise and Ketones

Julia Basso – PhD Exercise and Ketones I am intrigued by the body-brain connection and am constantly thinking about how all of the physiological things that happen in our body from exercise like burning fat and building muscle contribute to exercise-induced improvements in cognitive functioning. One piece of the puzzle that I have written about

Exercise As Medicine

Exercise is Medicine – Summary of the American College of Sports Medicine Conference

Julia Basso – PhD Exercise As Medicine The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) is the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world. They are dedicated to “advancing and integrating scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of exercise science and sports medicine.” This year from May 31 st to June

Brain Function

Fitness Helps Brain Function As We Age

Julia Basso , PhD Affiliation: Post-doctoral Research Associate, New York University, Center for Neural Science For the past 40 years, the world’s leading experts on learning and memory have gathered in Park City, Utah to discuss the newest and most exciting research on brain function: the brain’s ability to learn and remember information.  I recently

It’s Never Too Late: The Benefits of High Intensity Exercise for Dementia

Contributed by Fiona Callender, Research Assistant, University of Toronto We are all connected to someone who suffers from one form of dementia or another – whether it is directly or through caregivers, friends or relatives. With incidence rising, and Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia now being the leading cause of disability and death in

Young Brain

Exercise To Feel, Think, and Act Like a Young Brain – Part 2

Author: Julia C. Basso, PhD Affiliation: Post-doctoral Research Associate, Center for Neural Science, New York University Exercise To Feel, Think, and Act Like a Young Brain – Part 2 Gretchen Reynolds, an exercise blogger for the New York Times, recently wrote a post entitled, “Does exercise help keep our brains young?”  In it, she reported

Parkinson's Disease and Exercise

Exercise To Feel, Think, and Act Like a Young Brain – Part 1

Author: Julia C. Basso, PhD Affiliation: Post-doctoral Research Associate, Center for Neural Science, New York University Gretchen Reynolds, exercise blogger for the New York Times, recently wrote a post entitled, “Does exercise help keep our brains young?”  In it, she reported on recent published research by Dr. Hideaki Soya and his group at the Laboratory