Sacramento Running News

There is a growing body of evidence regarding the link between improved brain health and exercise.

Now, there is new research that indicates this benefit extends to babies in the womb.

In a recent study (abstract), the babies of women who exercised through pregnancy were born with more mature brains than those born of sedentary women.

Further study will be required to discover whether this effect continues through the child’s development or if the difference is temporary.

Read more about it in the LA Times.

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This rat may be damaging her heart.

Since it seems you can never really have too much to worry about, here is a nice article about how a life-time of intense training may cause damage to your heart–especially if you are a rat.

Read about it in the New York Times Well Blog.

The obvious point is that 99.99% of Americans exercise too little (or not at all) so this really applies to a vanishingly small segment of the population.

Regardless, don’t tell your mother!

The lazy mouse is an old mouse

A recent article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that mice that exercised vigorously did not show signs of aging compared to mice that did not exercise.

The study used mice that were genetically unable to repair mitochondria and therefore aged rapidly. The New York Times article on the study reports:

By the time they reached 8 months, or their early 60s in human terms, the animals were extremely frail and decrepit, with spindly muscles, shrunken brains, enlarged hearts, shriveled gonads and patchy, graying fur. Listless, they barely moved around their cages. All were dead before reaching a year of age.

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