Driving for more than two hours a day negatively affects IQ levels, a British study has found.
The results of the study, published on Sunday in the Daily Mail, show that long periods behind the wheel could speed up the effects of age on the brain, and the mind is less active on long car journeys.
The mammoth project saw more than half a million Britons aged 37-73 studied over a period of five years,out of these some 93,000 of them drove more than two or three hours a day.
Researchers found that not only did this proportion of subjects typically have lower brainpower to begin with but their IQ score declined more rapidly over the course of the study than those who did little or no driving.
Kishan Bakrania, a medical epidemiologist at the University of Leicester, told The Sunday Times: ‘We know that regularly driving for more than two or three hours a day is bad for your heart.
Meanwhile, a recent German study shows that regular physical exercise as cycling does not only prevent cognitive impairment and ageing, but also protects nerve cells from damage.
According to the study by the researchers at the Goethe-Institut in Frankfurt they examined the brains of 60 people between the ages of 65 and 85 using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic resonance spectroscopy to measure brain structure and learn about the positive effect of physical activity on the brain, so they found that regular exercise not only enhanced fitness and increased heart efficiency, but also had a positive effect on the brains of participants by improving cognitive performance and brain structure.
The researchers assessed participants’ performance in terms of movement, heart health and cognitive performance,adding that they subjected study participants to examine after exercising sport bike for half an hour three times a day over 12 weeks,and they found that physical activity reduces the loss of nerve cells in the brain, a condition that usually occurs as a prelude to Alzheimer’s disease.
Previous scientific study has found that regular physical activity, specially a morning walk, can contribute significantly in the treatment of dementia diseases that occur in the elderly, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
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