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Abby's Magazine - May/June 2015 | Page 39 or not you will suffer from dementia. And exercise now appears to be a powerful tool in the fight against cognitive impairment. How Exercise Helps Older Brains According to one of the studies mentioned above, moderate exercise could reverse normal brain shrinkage by two percent, effectively reversing age- related hippocampus degeneration by one to two years. Also according to the study, the people in the control group who didn't exercise saw an average of 1.4 percent decrease in hippocampus size. Folks, when these researchers say the hippocampus region of the brain increases in size as a response to exercise, they are talking about a powerful tool to fight the onset of Alzheimer's disease. The hippocampus, which is considered the memory center of your brain, is the first region of your brain to suffer shrinkage and impairment at the onset of Alzheimer's disease, leading to memory problems and disorientation. According to the research team: "We demonstrate that loss of hippocampal volume in late adulthood is not inevitable and can be reversed with moderate-intensity exercise." Other contributing factors to brain disease caused by the normal aging process may also include a decrease in blood flow to your brain, and the accumulation of environmental toxins in your brain. Exercise can help ameliorate both of these conditions by increasing blood flow to your brain, thereby increasing oxygen supply to your brain and encouraging a more vigorous release of accumulated toxins through better blood circulation. Increased blood flow may also promote delivery of more of the nutrients necessary to keep your brain cells healthy in the first place. How Exercise Helps Younger Brains Besides reversing the normal shrinkage of aging brains, exercise also helps younger brains grow