If that was true athletes would be the youngest, mentally healthiest, and in many other ways better than average. But that's not the case if you look at them. My guess exercise is beneficial only to some level, after that it has a big toll on everything. Including IQ, mental and general health, and so on.
34 years old male, not overweight, eating healthy. I kept reading that exercise is the best thing you can do and that everyone should do it, so I started running and cycling. Very short distances, very slowly and very gradually.
It made me feel horrible. Each time it would take me a few days to recover, feeling dizzy and mentally exhausted. I thought that I was just a bit out of shape so I kept going. Big mistake.
A few weeks ago I completely crashed with the dizziness and mental exhaustion staying constantly, leaving me unable to do basic things like standing for more than a few minutes at a time. Complete rest helped, after a few weeks I finally start to feel like myself again. Currently seeing doctors and doing a lot of checks, nothing obvious found so far.
The only reason I kept pushing is that I was reading everywhere that exercising is this amazing thing that is good for everyone. So at the moment I feel that this messaging should be toned down a bit.
PS: Long time HN user, using a throwaway as I don't want health stuff to be tied to me.
Seems like a pretty small effect - if I'm 58 and I have the brain of a 57 year old, and to achieve that I did an entire year of exercise (as was done in this study) ... you'd have to evaluate it against many other things to decide if that was really the easiest way to achieve that result.
I'm always suspicious of small effect sizes even when they are statistically significant. It just seems like so many confounders could bring about the effect. Here I'd wonder if just the mental challenge of achieving that sustained exercise over a whole year was responsible, since generally speaking, any mental challenge you undertake on a regular bases improves overall cognition.
They try to argue their way around this:
> "Even though the difference is less than a year, prior studies suggest that each additional 'year' of brain age is associated with meaningful differences in later-life health,"
But it just begs the question, if you think that then go measure those things with your study.
Of course I'm not in any way arguing against exercise. Adding at least a baseline level of exercise into your lifestyle is the most impactful health intervention anybody can do after age 40 I believe.
>... has there ever been verified science that shows exercise is unhealthy?
Yes, the extremes of endurance have certainly been shown to have a negative effect on heart health, and possibly also colon health, but the amount of exercise required to get into the danger zone here is so high almost no one that isn't a competitive athlete would achieve it. (Although, amateur marathon runners might.)
We know that exercise is good for us, but studying it is how we better understand the different ways it is beneficial for us in a controlled setting.
I see these comments online a lot, just because something might be common knowledge, doesn't mean we fully understand it, nor should be stop studying it.
This is from the abstract: Engaging in 12 months of moderate-to-vigorous exercise reduced brain-PAD in early-to-midlife adults. The pathways by which these effects occur remain unknown.
They do not make the claim from the title. Given that the effect is small, it might just be that brain-PAD is sensitive to other factors than age, e.g. exercise. As a matter of fact, this study is decent aupport for that hypothesis.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 44.0 ms ] threadThe benefits of exercise against aging, mental illness, etc are numerous and well documented. Everybody should do it.
34 years old male, not overweight, eating healthy. I kept reading that exercise is the best thing you can do and that everyone should do it, so I started running and cycling. Very short distances, very slowly and very gradually.
It made me feel horrible. Each time it would take me a few days to recover, feeling dizzy and mentally exhausted. I thought that I was just a bit out of shape so I kept going. Big mistake.
A few weeks ago I completely crashed with the dizziness and mental exhaustion staying constantly, leaving me unable to do basic things like standing for more than a few minutes at a time. Complete rest helped, after a few weeks I finally start to feel like myself again. Currently seeing doctors and doing a lot of checks, nothing obvious found so far.
The only reason I kept pushing is that I was reading everywhere that exercising is this amazing thing that is good for everyone. So at the moment I feel that this messaging should be toned down a bit.
PS: Long time HN user, using a throwaway as I don't want health stuff to be tied to me.
The problem is that doing it sucks.
Seems like a pretty small effect - if I'm 58 and I have the brain of a 57 year old, and to achieve that I did an entire year of exercise (as was done in this study) ... you'd have to evaluate it against many other things to decide if that was really the easiest way to achieve that result.
I'm always suspicious of small effect sizes even when they are statistically significant. It just seems like so many confounders could bring about the effect. Here I'd wonder if just the mental challenge of achieving that sustained exercise over a whole year was responsible, since generally speaking, any mental challenge you undertake on a regular bases improves overall cognition.
They try to argue their way around this:
> "Even though the difference is less than a year, prior studies suggest that each additional 'year' of brain age is associated with meaningful differences in later-life health,"
But it just begs the question, if you think that then go measure those things with your study.
Of course I'm not in any way arguing against exercise. Adding at least a baseline level of exercise into your lifestyle is the most impactful health intervention anybody can do after age 40 I believe.
https://www.wendysuzuki.com/exercise-research
There's also heart muscle elasticity:
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circulationaha.117.0...
and reduced dementia risk:
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/small-amounts-of-moderate-...
The general consensus should just be exercising is good for you, that's it, done.
Yes, the extremes of endurance have certainly been shown to have a negative effect on heart health, and possibly also colon health, but the amount of exercise required to get into the danger zone here is so high almost no one that isn't a competitive athlete would achieve it. (Although, amateur marathon runners might.)
We know that exercise is good for us, but studying it is how we better understand the different ways it is beneficial for us in a controlled setting.
I see these comments online a lot, just because something might be common knowledge, doesn't mean we fully understand it, nor should be stop studying it.
They do not make the claim from the title. Given that the effect is small, it might just be that brain-PAD is sensitive to other factors than age, e.g. exercise. As a matter of fact, this study is decent aupport for that hypothesis.