Within the past few years the new trend of healthy eating and exercise has spread like wild fire. No matter where you go the idea of living a healthy life style is constantly advertised. Their are apps that help track your fitness and calorie intake, appropriate portion sizes are now labeled on food containers and different workouts are created to burn the maximum amount of calories in the shortest amount of time. Many people question whether it is even worth beginning a healthy life style in their old age nonagenarian track-and-field athlete, Olga Kotelka has proven that it is never too late to start. Kotelka is one of the most successful athletes in the world and traveled to the University of Illinois to let scientist study her brain.

Ms. Kotelka has won numerous amounts of world records and hundreds of gold medals in masters events. What makes her so interesting to scientists is that fact that she did not start serious athletic training till the age of 77. Her brain scan was studied in hopes that it could potentially show scientist what late-life exercising could do to the brain.

Kotelka died last year at the age of 95 but her brain scan was also published. The results showed that her brain looked much different from the average 90 year old. The white matter of her brain – “the cells that connect neurons and help to send messages from one part of the brain to another” (New York Times) – showed fewer abnormalities than other people her age. Her hippocampus, which is in charge of memory, was also larger than those in similar age. However, it was smaller compared to those decades younger than her. Kotelka’s brain overall looked a lot younger than her actual age.

However, the down side to this research is that scientist never saw Ms. Kotelka’s brain before she started training. Making it impossible to confirm whether or not exercising effected her brain health. Scientist cannot confirm that exercise helps stall cognitive decline due to weak evidence.

Agnieszka Burzynska, an assistant professor of human development at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and colleagues at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois in Urbana, studied brain scans of older men and women,ages 60- 80, using a technique that tracks oxygen flow in the brain. The study concluded that those who are more active had better oxygenation and healthier patterns of brain activity than the more sedentary volunteers. Specifically in the hippocampus and in connecting different brain areas to one another. Previous brain scan’s done by Dr. Burzynska and her colleagues established similar brain activity in elderly people is associated with higher scores on cognitive tests. The difference between Dr. Burzynska’s test subjects and Olga Kotelka is that none of the subjects were athletes.

Scientist cannot confirm that exercise makes a difference in brain health but it is very likely that exercising enables our brain to age better.

It is never too late to start a healthy life style. The study proves even the elderly, non-athletes who started a more active life style showed signs of a healthier brain. Being active and eating right is very important to living a long life with minimal complications.

Here is a video of Olga Kotelka talking about her active life style.

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