PROLONGED SITTING AND BRAIN ATROPHY. GET UP, GET MOVING, & TAKE RESVERATROL

I got sick of sitting.  Literally.  In those Memorial Day, Twilight Zone marathons, one could easily get sick of sitting.  One, two, maybe three episodes, and I got to get up.  And I did, often to find more productive activities.  

I got sick of sitting, too, when I drove for a transportation outfit in Denver, hauling supplies to hardware and other stores in the mountain towns of Vail, Carbondale, and Aspen.  The schlep from Denver to Carbondale was 3 hours.  That's three hours of straight sitting, and after a handful of stops in the area, I'd have to drive it back . . . another 3 hours sitting.  My legs cramped.  Circulation caused pin-like needling.  It was awful.  And still, I stuck it out.  I needed the money.   

Turns out now that there is scientific proof now for the unpleasant experience of sitting for hours on end.  Today, I sit too much, too, because I work on the computer most of the day.  I've switched that out, however, for a desk of sorts where I can type while standing up.  Find a way to get up.  If you don't have that avaiable to you, then find a way to take breaks at 30-minute or 60-minutes intervals.  Further, we're not just talking about folks who sit for so long but also folks who've handed over too much power to their handheld devices and to sensitive individuals, who used to get tagged as "Emo's."  One should not abscond themselves to the dark recesses of their bed, lights off, blinds closed, with earplugs being their only connection to sensient life.  First, you don't want any part of your body to atrophy.  Zero.  Don't rationalize a foreboding outcome in favor of laziness or somehow justify that because things aren't going your way or you aren't being loved enough.  Remember the title of that Yes song, "Owner of a Lonely Heart"?  Great song.  Not my favorite, but great.  But those lyrics support your strength, since so many times we make emotional decisions based on neediness.  Not good.  

According to the study, the news pertains to middle-aged folks.  That in middle-aged folks, sitting for prolonged periods of time frays the lining of the medial temporal lobe, the Hippocampus being the major brain structure in that lobe.  Think truck drivers, taxi drivers, call-center workers, dispatchers, computer operators, and others.  This affects a lot of people not to make this information alarming news.  But I am not alarming you because you already know this.  But I don't think that UCLA suddenly exercised its empathetic or do-gooder's muscles.  I think that with the number of digital products available to people that American society is losing some brain and brain power.  Kids and adults sit and lie down a lot more now either to bounce around on social media, email, or something fun and interesting on Netflix, Hulu, or Kindle.  More people are on their backs or arse a lot more.  And given how the major media outlets have been bleeding, they are definitely upping their game to grab more and more of your attention.  Some people simply can't put these devices down for fear that they would stop learning something new.  And THAT IS the addiction.  

Prolonged periods of sitting in middle age is tied to brain atrophy, new research shows.

Using MRI, investigators found sedentary behavior is a significant predictor of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) thinning and its substructures and that physical activity, even at high levels, does not offset the harmful effects of sitting for extended periods.

What's at stake is brain volume.  Like so many organs in our bodies, they do give way to age.  Our Thymus, the immune system's master gland, shrinks on average about 1% per year.  Zinc regrows it to its original size, a fact ignored by almost everyone, but the point is that our organs undergo annual shrinkage.  Knowing that, would you still pursue risky behaviors that accelerate this shrinkage or impede their repair and regrowth?  One wonders.  

The LA Times reviewed the UCLA study and pointed out that 

The study did not find any correlation between subjects' exercise habits and the thickness of either their medial temporal lobe or its constituent structures. That surprised the researchers since other work has found that brain volume is generally greater — and cognitive performance is better — in people who work out more. 

Get that?  The greater the brain volume, the better its function.  And though the point is made

Even for people who are physically active, sitting a lot seems to be bad for your brain,

neither the review nor the study offer nutritional solutions to offset or reverse the damage from long-term sitting.  According to the study, no amount of and no kind of exercise reverses the damaging effects of sitting for prolonged periods of time.  You just can't rebuild brain volume.  Or can you?  And the study, apparently, only looked at the results of long periods of sitting but not what it is about long-term sitting that causes the thinning of the Medial Temporal Lobe where your Hippocampus is located.  Is it the deleterious effects that sitting has on your metabolism?  Is it poor circulation?  These are important questions to ask to measure the seriousness of the condition.  So far, the cause of brain thinning is a mystery.  And the study only shows a correlation . . . and a strong causation as well.  Toward the end of her LA Times review of the study, Melissa Healy does hint that the thinning may, in fact, be caused by poor metabolism.  

The brain, of course, relies on adequate supplies of oxygen and nutrients to maintain itself and resist the depredations of aging. If sitting too long is compromising those supplies, then it stands to reason that our delicate cortical structures will have trouble maintaining the volume and density they had when we were young, Siddarth said.

So the message is clear.  Prolonged sitting is bad.  So get up.  Prabha Siddarth, Ph.D, lead author of the UCLA study, and LA Times' reviewer, Healy, both insist that you get up.  And if you sit long hours during the day, set hourly alarms or email notices on your computer to remind you to get up off your arse. 

For those looking to keep their brains plump and their memories sharp, Siddarth said the message is clear: Get up. Pace while talking on the phone, dance with your headphones on, take a walk at lunch. And if you're at a computer all day, set hourly alarms that remind you to stand and march around.

Okay, so we know that prolonged sitting is bad for our health.  But we already knew this.  Remeber those cross-country treks in the old station wagon in mid-August.  Yeah, that one through Yuma, Arizona, where after driving for 2 hours in the Sonoran Desert, you asked to stop at any gas station or rest stop . . . just to stretch your legs.  There still is one point made in the study that bothers me.  It's "that physical activity, even at high levels, does not offset the harmful effects of sitting for extended periods."  Really?  Exercise cannot replenish brain volume?  Is she sure?  Is she positive?  What about stroke victims?  Don't doctors recommend exercise and better nutrition to get them back to work or to function?  Ditto with brain injured folks, like athletes.  

Now for the good news.  Took you long enough. 

Your brain volume changes through your lifetime.  It's not a one way trip to Hell in a handbasket or as a basket case.  Now the first sentence of the first article I find at NCBI on brain volume states this

Physical exercise has been shown to increase brain volume and improve cognition in randomized trials of non-demented elderly.

Which fits in with the lead author's recommendation to "Pace while talking on the phone, dance with your headphones on, take a walk at lunch."  

DANCE, WALK, TAKE A HIKE
But the study on prolonged sitting was done independent of examining mitigating factors, like exercise and diet, and instead relied on patient reporting.  But that in no way diminishes or devalues the importance of her finding and the lesson drawn from the study: GET UP AND GET MOVING.  That same NCBI report on brain volume concludes

On the basis of published findings showing growth of brain volume with a physical exercise intervention [20], we hypothesized that the Walking [aerobic exercise] and Tai Chi [non-aerobic] exercise groups would demonstrate increases in brain volume when compared with the No Intervention group. We further hypothesized that those who walked faster would benefit more than those who walked slower.

So increases in brain volume COMPARED TO . . .  the non-intervention group.  When I walk in the mornings, I see several large groups of Chinese men and women in red T-shirts and white slacks stepping, moving through the air, reaching, and choreographing Tai Chi moves on the morning lawn accompanied by Chinese renditions of mid-century American and English rock-n-roll.  

A word on Tai Chi from that same article. 

The finding that a presumably less aerobic form of exercise, Tai Chi, had the greatest effect on brain growth and cognitive performance was unexpected, although modest gains in aerobic fitness have been demonstrated in clinical trials comparing Tai Chi participants to no intervention [36]. Tai Chi, which has been described as a type of moving meditation [37], requires continuous and sustained attention to maintenance of posture.

What does the Medial Temporal Lobe do that makes it so important? 

It's "essential for declarative memory (conscious memory for facts and events)." 

The medial temporal lobe includes a system of anatomically related structures that are essential for declarative memory (conscious memory for facts and events). The system consists of the hippocampal region (CA fields, dentate gyrus, and subicular complex) and the adjacent perirhinal, entorhinal, and parahippocampal cortices.  [. . . ] this system (a) is principally concerned with memory, (b) operates with neocortex to establish and maintain long-term memory, and (c) ultimately, through a process of consolidation, becomes independent of long-term memory, though questions remain about the role of perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices in this process and about spatial memory in rodents.

Notice how your brain is almost shaped like a mushroom cloud.  It's explosive.  

NUTRITIONAL REPAIR
Yes, there is hope; in fact, beyond hope, antidotes to this reduction in size.  I don't know how many times I've written here about Benfotiamine.  You can see its benefits here and here.  And two, I would get started on an exercise program that targets the brain.  If your joints are a bit crippled, try IP6 to loosen them up.  Benfotiamine should be considered part of a daily brain regimen.  

Here's why there's hope.  The hippocampus-based relational memory [is] sensitive "to the effects of nutrition."

 And this

Long thought of as the top of the body’s food chain, the brain has been shown in recent research to be sensitive to processes occurring elsewhere in the body. Lifestyle factors such as dietary intake, body mass, and physical fitness that affect bodily health can also influence brain structure and function in both humans and animals. 

This is good news.  As is this:

Hippocampal size is also known to increase in response to lifestyle factors including aerobic exercise, education, and intensive cognitive training, such as that experienced by London taxi drivers in training or medical students studying for a certification exam (7–10). Interestingly, as further discussed below, components of dietary intake have beneficial or detrimental effects on hippocampal health (11). 

Folic acid is excellent for the brain and the spine.  Seems to me that if you nutritionally support these structures, knowing that a feedback loop exists, that the nutritional support for one organ will support others nearby and distal.  Think of exercise.  When you do some squats notice how the strength in your haunches and legs transfers to other areas, like your lower back and your spine.  The same thing happens with nutrition. 

Finally, Bill Sardi says that you have to be crazy not to be taking Resveratrol for brain health.  The evidence is clear, in fact, it's visually clear: Resveratrol reawakens your brain.  See for yourself.  Find his Longevinex here.