Is exercise better for your brain than crossword puzzles?

Going for a walk could be the key to staying sharp well into old age

People who incorporate regular, even non-strenuous, exercise into their life may better ward off Alzheimer's than those who do not.
(Image credit: Thinkstock/BrandX Pictures)

The question: A relatively large new study published in the journal Neurology takes a look at mild physical exercise's relationship with mental health for the elderly, posing the question: Is going for a brisk walk better for your brain than, say, completing a crossword puzzle?

How it was tested: Nearly 700 people born in 1936 were enlisted for this study, conducted at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. In 1947, nearly all of them had been given mandatory intelligence and mental health tests in school. That gave researchers a baseline to work with, and decades later, researchers administered MRI scans to the participants at age 70 to document their brain size. For the next three years, participants tracked both daily leisure activities (playing chess, completing crossword puzzles) and daily physical activities (doing chores, going for walks). At age 73, MRI scans were taken again to measure brain shrinkage.

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