Tommy Wood

speaker

390 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 12 Apr

Tommy Wood’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 1.

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The mindbodygreen Podcast · 645: The truth about cognitive decline and what you can do about it | Tommy Wood, M.D., Ph.D. · 12 Apr 2026 podcast

Then we know that intensity does matter.

if you're trying to get the most out of your cardio.

So probably one of the first studies that showed that you could actually increase the size of the hippocampus in older adults.

So the hippocampus, really important for memory, is affected particularly in the later stages of dementia.

We used to just think that it got like 1% to 2% smaller per year once you're in your 60s and 70s.

And if you've got dementia, the rate of decline is probably about double that.

And function kind of drops as the size of the hippocampus decreases.

There was a study now, more than 15 years old, where they took relatively sedentary older adults and they had them do brisk walking.

So...

know if you're into your cardio zones based on um how they prescribed intensity it was kind of it was essentially zone two 40 minutes of zone two brisk walking three times a week for a year significantly increased the size of the hippocampus significantly improved fitness and improved memory so if you're not moving much just like walking three times a week has a significant effect

But one of my favorite studies that shows that like even more intensity may be even better if you can do it was published a couple of years ago where they took a similar age group, sort of 60s and 70s, and they had three groups.

They're like a low intensity kind of stretching balance group

They had essentially a zone two group who did something very similar.

So three times a week, 40 minutes of jogging on a treadmill.

And then they had a high intensity interval training group who did something called the Norwegian four by four protocol.

So if people aren't familiar with that, you run for four minutes, 85 to 95% of your maximum heart rate.

They took a three-minute break, and they did that four times over, hence 4x4.

And they did that three times a week for six months, which is a pretty intensive training regimen.

But what they found was that in that group...

there were much greater benefits in terms of the structure and function of the hippocampus compared to the other two groups.

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