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New research suggests that exercise is like Uber eats for your brain: Wisdom Wednesdays · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Everyone, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: this is the last one of two and twenty five,
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  Speaker 1: and today we're going to dive into some pretty cool
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  Speaker 1: new science about how exercise doesn't just strengthen your body,
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  Speaker 1: but also boost your brain in ways that were not
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  Speaker 1: previously understood. And all of this comes down to some
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  Speaker 1: very tiny particles floating around in your blood, called extracellular
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  Speaker 1: vesicles or evs for short. Now, unless you are a
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  Speaker 1: full card carrying biology nerd, you probably haven't heard much
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  Speaker 1: about these little guys, if even anything at all. But
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  Speaker 1: trust me, they are turning out to be a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: So here is the latest research. When you engage in
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  Speaker 1: vigorous physical activity, you're not just burning calories or building muscle.
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  Speaker 1: You're actually triggering a cascade of biological processes that include
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  Speaker 1: the release of these evs, their little tiny membrane bound
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  Speaker 1: bubbles that carry all sorts of biological cargo like proteins, lipids,
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  Speaker 1: and even nucleic acids. Now, these little vesicles, actually, it
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  Speaker 1: turns out, helps yourselves to talk to each other, and
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  Speaker 1: recent research has shown that they can travel through the
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  Speaker 1: bloodstream and even cross the blood bur and barrier carrying
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  Speaker 1: really important cargo. Now why does this all matter? Well,
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  Speaker 1: the new study that I read recently was published in
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  Speaker 1: the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the
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  Speaker 1: Medical Sciences branch of that journal, and in it, researchers
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  Speaker 1: out of Turo University in Nevada have discovered that these
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  Speaker 1: ev the latch onto something called POMC right, which is
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  Speaker 1: short for propio milano corton. This is a hormone precursor
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  Speaker 1: or a pro hormone that actually gets turned into several
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  Speaker 1: important hormones such as endorphins, which you'll probably know where
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  Speaker 1: feel good chemicals in the brain, but also gets turned
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  Speaker 1: into acth adrenal cardotropic hormone that's the hormone that helps
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  Speaker 1: you respond to stress. And we know from other lines
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  Speaker 1: of research that a deficiency in POMC can cause extreme hunger,
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  Speaker 1: severe obasicly, but it can also cause adrenal insufficiency and
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  Speaker 1: even and I love this one, can even cause pale
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  Speaker 1: skin and make you into a ginger. It causes red
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  Speaker 1: or ginger her when you have an insufficiency. So there
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  Speaker 1: must be why spreading insufficiencies of POMC back in Celtic history.
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  Speaker 1: But anyway, back to the podcast, here's the exciting bit
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  Speaker 1: that the research has just discovered, after about of intense exercise,
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  Speaker 1: the amount of POMC hitching a ride on evs increased fourfold.
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  Speaker 1: Now that's far from a subtle increase. A fourfold increase
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  Speaker 1: is clearly a very deliberate biological mechanism. But here's the
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  Speaker 1: game changer. What these researchers find is that the PMC
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  Speaker 1: that was bound up in the evs can actually cross
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  Speaker 1: biological barriers such as the blood briant barrier, way more
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  Speaker 1: efficiency than POMC floating around on its own. So what
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  Speaker 1: does this actually mean in real world terms. Well, first
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  Speaker 1: of all, let's talk about mood. No doubt, I've heard
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  Speaker 1: of the runners high that euphoric feeling you get if
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  Speaker 1: they're a good workout. It's not just a run that
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  Speaker 1: you get it in. But turns out it's not a flick.
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  Speaker 1: These evs are helping deliver hormone precursors into the brain
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  Speaker 1: that can then be converted into mood boosting endorphins. And
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  Speaker 1: that's one very plausible mechanism, or at least part of
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  Speaker 1: the mechanism by which exercise is such a powerful mood
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  Speaker 1: enhancer and antidepressant, and as I've discussed previously, absolutely trumps
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  Speaker 1: antidepressant medication. But it actually goes deeper than this. This
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  Speaker 1: new research suggests that the exercise induced evs may also
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  Speaker 1: help us to modulate pain and damping inflammation, help us
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  Speaker 1: with our energy balance and even metabolic function, all by
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  Speaker 1: acting as smart transport shuttles. It's kind of like your
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  Speaker 1: body has got built in uber eats for your brain,
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  Speaker 1: and exercise actually sends out the fleets are are books
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  Speaker 1: the ubers. What's also remarkable is how these evs know
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  Speaker 1: what to pick up and this is really super interesting. Well,
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  Speaker 1: it is for gig like me under exercise induced stress
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  Speaker 1: such as acidification of the blood. You know when you
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  Speaker 1: get that lactic acid your blood turns acid from that
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  Speaker 1: high intensity exercise.
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  Speaker 2: The POMC actually changes shapes slightly and this allows it
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  Speaker 2: to bind more readily to specific receptors on the surface
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  Speaker 2: of the evs, which is how it gets a lift
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  Speaker 2: in the first place. And that's pretty freaking clever stuff.
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  Speaker 2: And once on board.
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  Speaker 1: These hormone packed evs get a free pass into areas
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  Speaker 1: like the brain where they can have all kinds of
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  Speaker 1: effects and most of them very very beneficial. So this
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  Speaker 1: is actually a bit of a new paradom. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's one where exercise doesn't just impact the body through
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  Speaker 1: MACA or cardiovascar effects, which have been well established for decades,
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  Speaker 1: but also through targeted molecular messaging via these tiny evs.
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  Speaker 1: And add this to the exercise driven MYO kinds that
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  Speaker 1: I talk about so many times.
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  Speaker 2: And it's simply undeniable that exercise is a very potent,
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  Speaker 2: if not the most potent driver of metabolism and body
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  Speaker 2: brain health.
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  Speaker 1: And there's just so much stuff that is organized around
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  Speaker 1: exercise in our metabolism that this is it's just undeniable
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  Speaker 1: for me. And from a broad or health perspective, this
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  Speaker 1: mechanism opens up a whole new world for medical science.
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  Speaker 1: As these researchers point out in the journal article. If
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  Speaker 1: these evs can carry hormone precursors into the brain efficiently,
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  Speaker 1: could we potentially use this same system to deliver therapy
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  Speaker 1: peutic drugs across the blood brain barrier. Could this be
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  Speaker 1: a new way to manage conditions like depression, chronic pre
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  Speaker 1: in or even neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkins's and Alzheimer's like.
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  Speaker 1: It is very early days, as the researchers point out,
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  Speaker 1: but the potential is massive, and until we explore that potential,
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  Speaker 1: there is a takeaway. You know, if you did need
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  Speaker 1: yet another reason to move your body, but this time
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  Speaker 1: at higher intensity, whether that's running, hit, lifting weights, cycling,
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  Speaker 1: anything that gets your heart ate up significantly, this is
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  Speaker 1: the reason your workout might just be fueling your brain
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  Speaker 1: in ways that we have never understood before. These are
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  Speaker 1: tiny evs but a big brain boost. So that is
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  Speaker 1: it this week for and actually for the year for
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  Speaker 1: Wisdom Wednesday. So the big take home, get moving, get
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  Speaker 1: those evs flowing. I'll catch you next time.