(taken from the fasting yahoo group which concerns itself with intermittent fasting):-
Harvard University researchers have uncovered a mechanism through which caloric restriction and exercise delay some of the debilitating effects of aging by rejuvenating connections between nerves and the muscles that they control.
The research, conducted in the labs of Joshua Sanes and Jeff Lichtman and described this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, begins to explain prior findings that exercise and restricted-calorie diets help to stave off the mental and physical degeneration of aging.
"Caloric restriction and exercise have numerous, dramatic effects on our mental acuity and motor ability," says Sanes, a professor of molecular and cellular biology and director of the Center for Brain Science at Harvard. "This research gives us a hint that the way these extremely powerful lifestyle factors act is by attenuating or reversing the decline in our synapses."
http://www.brainmysteries.com/research/Exercise_and_caloric_restriction_rejuvenate_synapses_in_lab_mice.aspAbstract and pdf of full article available here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/07/26/1002220107.abstract?sid=857aeaac-c233-425a-9e52-9cbc23756c68__._,_.___
