Protocol: Reversing the loss of this part of the brain

You walk into the kitchen and stand there. You know you came in for something, but you don't remember what.

We blame it on stress or being in a rush. And almost always, that is what it is. But behind it, there is also a specific structure: the hippocampus, the area of the brain that creates new memories.

Your brain shrinks with age. But it doesn't have to.

With age, the hippocampus tends to lose volume. Little by little. Without warning.

It is not just any area. It is where new memories are formed and where you learn. When it shrinks, memory fails and the risk of dementia rises.

The normal thing to do is accept it as part of aging.

But there is an experiment that says otherwise.

The study

In 2011, a trial with 120 sedentary adults aged 55 to 80 was published.

They were divided into two groups for one year.

One group walked. The other did stretching exercises.

In the end, they measured their brains with an MRI.

Those who stretched lost 1.4% of their hippocampus. Exactly what is expected with age.

Those who walked increased it by 2%.

They didn't just slow it down. They made it grow.

According to the authors, that is equivalent to turning back the clock by one to two years of brain aging.

And it wasn't just size. Those who walked also performed better on a spatial memory test.

Why it works

When you do aerobic exercise, your body produces BDNF. It is a protein that acts as fertilizer for neurons.

In the study, the more BDNF levels rose in the blood, the more the hippocampus grew.

There is another powerful finding. Those who started the study in better physical shape lost less volume, even in the group that only stretched.

Physical fitness protects the brain. And it can be trained.

The nuances

It is just one trial. Well-done, but one.

A meta-analysis of 14 trials and 737 people did not find an increase in total hippocampal volume. It did, however, find a clear effect on the left hippocampus. And, above all, that exercise slows the loss that comes with the years.

A more recent meta-analysis, with 23 interventions, did see a positive effect on total volume.

The honest conclusion: perhaps you won't always make it grow. But slowing the shrinking is already a huge victory.

The protocol

No gym. No equipment. Just walking.

3 sessions per week.

Start with short sessions, 10 to 15 minutes.

Increase a few minutes each week until you reach 40.

Moderate intensity: you can talk, but not sing.

Keep it up for a year. The changes in the study were measured at 12 months.

If you already walk, increase the pace. What moved the needle wasn't strolling: it was improving physical fitness.

Your 1% improvement today

Today, 10 minutes of brisk walking. It should be a little hard to talk.

Tomorrow, another 10. Next week, 15.

This is what I cover in the Longevity Workshop and Private Longevity WhatsApp Group: If walking for a year seems impossible on your own, in the workshop and the WhatsApp group we support that habit that makes the hippocampus grow together.

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