Physical Activity in Teens Linked to Mental Skills Late in Life
Posted by admin on September 5th, 2010 at 02:48am
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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
How active you are early in life may affect how able-minded you are late in life. That was the finding of a new study of cognitive impairment, or a loss in mental abilities.
The study involved more than nine thousand women in the United States over the age of sixty-five. They answered questions about their level of physical activity as teenagers and at age thirty, fifty and late in life.
Laura Middleton of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Canada led the study.
LAURA MIDDLETON: “People who were physically active on a regular basis had lower risk of cognitive impairments in late life. But it seemed that teenage physical activity was particularly important in terms of the prevention of cognitive impairments.”
Speaking by Skype, Laura Middleton noted two long-lasting effects that physical activity can have on teenagers. Exercise could help strengthen the blood vessels that carry blood and oxygen to the brain. Also, physical activity is known to improve the brain’s ability to repair itself.
The study is in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Women who said they were physically active even once a week showed less cognitive impairment as measured by a test. There was not a strong link between the amount of physical activity and the extent of impairment. But the link was strongest among those who were active as teenagers.
Laura Middleton says other studies of exercise and cognitive skills have found a stronger link in women than in men. Still, she says, there is no reason to suggest that the finding about teenage physical activity should not apply to men as well.
Now speaking of teenagers, they were the subject of another new study. It looked at the effects of a later start to the school day.
For the study, an independent high school in Rhode Island delayed morning classes from eight o’clock to eight-thirty. The change affected about two hundred students in grades nine through twelve.
In online surveys, students reported feeling less sleepy during the day. They rated themselves as less depressed and more active in school. They also reported sleeping longer on school nights and making fewer tiredness-related visits to the school health center.
Judith Owens of the Hasbro Children’s Hospital led the study. It appears in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
The study says class attendance improved. It also says teachers and sports coaches had resisted the change. And administrators had planned to return to the eight o’clock start time after the study. But students and teachers voted to keep the half-hour delay for another term.
And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report. I’m Shirley Griffith.
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Tags: Health, mental skill
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9 Comments for Physical Activity in Teens Linked to Mental Skills Late in Life
1. tttt | September 5th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
New born childrend have acted almost whole day except sleeping time. They wave their hands and feet continously. So that, body’s acting is very important and necessary to growing of people. When they are their adolescent stage to adult stage, their most actions are on studying and working with the daily movement that as body exercises, or nearly like that. When they become to old ages, in the rests and relax, but exercise acting is gently movement. Not only that, the brain activity is still necessary in daily living.
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2. tttt | September 7th, 2010 at 8:34 am
This is my practice on English. I only want who that amends my errors. Thank so much.
Learner by myself
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db Reply:
September 25th, 2010 at 8:28 am
i think you must use” practice in English” instead of the words ” practice on E”. i really like your comments.
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tttt Reply:
December 10th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
My dea Friend
Though who you are, on this web, we are not clearly to know each other but fist, I very thank you for the help from you to me. After a long time, I decide to reply you about meaning of use “on and In”. I see it very dificult to make a sentence with using a preposition english.
I still think that you are correct, and it would be able to occur in some cases of exception (?)
http://en.jukuu.com/esearch.php?q=practice+on
Again, Thank you so much.
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3. omlunxauxi | September 8th, 2010 at 10:01 am
helllo, admi
please, help me. i received mail from nghetienganh.com, but i can not dowload some lesson. could you please tell me to know the reason? thanks a lot.
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MInh Le Reply:
September 9th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
maybe you have in trouble with the internet download manager . Try to repair it again !
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4. nhoc | September 9th, 2010 at 12:26 am
i’m learnig so much when i heart these lesson. my listenning skill is improved. thanks
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5. amazuki | September 12th, 2010 at 10:49 am
This is of course you can improve your brain, physical ability, mental ability and keep fit via exercising everyday. It is not differences between woman or men in this frontier. If you train gymnastics suitably, you will get a good heath. There is opinion which was written on this statement, it is very exactly, i think some school need to change the time begining shool day. If students sleep the sleep of the just, they will have enough energy and will be comfortable when they go to school. And they will learn better. In my opinion the ideal environment for studying, students are faciliated about time. The forcing can make the bad result.
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6. nguyen tung | November 3rd, 2010 at 7:29 am
this is an interesting report
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