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FITNESS Exercise is medicine


There’s increasing awareness of the important role exercise plays in wellbeing, from lengthening telomeres to reducing stress and spas are starting to adopt more comprehensive fitness programmes. We round-up some of the latest research to help spas educate guests about the varied benefits of physical activity


Exercise protects the brain from fat attack


A Exercise mends a broken heart R


egular and strenuous exercise can reactivate dormant stem cells, lead- ing to the development of new heart muscle, according to research published in the European Heart Journal. These find- ings indicate that the damage caused by heart disease or failure could be partially repaired by exercise. Researchers from Liver-


pool John Moores University in the UK showed that healthy rats undertaking 30 minutes of strenuous exercise a day dem- onstrated activity in 60 per cent of previously dormant heart stem cells. After two weeks, there was a 7 per cent increase in the number of cardiomyocites – the ‘beating’ cells in heart tissue. While previous research has shown that injections of chemicals known as growth factors can coax dormant stem cells back


to life, this is the first study to show that regular exercise can have a similar effect by stimulating growth factor production. Scientists will now examine the effects


of exercise on rats that have suffered heart attacks to determine if the results are even more pro- nounced. Dr Georgina Ellison, who led the study, says: “We hope exercise might be even more effective in damaged hearts, because you have more reason to replace the large amounts


of cells that are lost” – ie the body has a greater need to adapt and repair itself after a heart attack. While an exercise routine is normally included in cardiac rehabilitation pro- grammes, “maybe to be more effective it needs to be carried out at a higher inten- sity, in order to activate the resident stem cells,” adds Ellison.


Waring, CD et al (Oct 2012). The adult heart responds to increased workload with physiologic hypertrophy, cardiac stem cell activation, and new myocyte formation. European Heart Journal


134 spa business handbook 2013


diet containing lots of fatty foods is associated with a decline in brain functioning,


which elevate the risk of conditions such as Alzheimer’s. Exactly how this occurs remains unknown, but researchers think that fatty acids from food infiltrate the brain and jump-start a process that causes damage to the regions responsible for memory and learning. A recent study carried out by researchers at the University of Min- nesota in the US examined the result of a high-fat diet (where at least 40 per cent of calories were from fat) on memory in rats, and then the subse- quent effects of exercise. Memory declined after four months of the high-fat diet, but then improved once exercise was introduced. After seven weeks, the rats on the high-fat and exercise diet were scor- ing as well on the memory test as they had at the start, whereas the mem- ory of those not exercising continued to decline. The results suggest that exercise stimulates the production of substances that fight the effects of fatty acids on the brain. The amount of exercise wasn’t excessive – the rats did the equivalent of 30 minutes’ jog- ging a day – but researchers stress the same protective effect might not be noted in humans.


Mavanji, V et al. (2012). Exercise reduces cognitive decline induced by dietary fat. Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience


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