High Heart Rates & Brain Function

Dr Axel Montagne says high heart rates can help to preserve brain function.

"We have tiny blood vessels in the brain. If you don’t exercise, if you don’t make sure that your heart is pumping at a high rate regularly during the week, those tiny vessels that are even smaller than your hair in terms of diameter, will start to collapse. [These capillaries] represent 90% of your brain vasculature.

So, if you don’t do enough exercise, you will start chronically to have some vessels that will basically constrict, collapse, and disappear. Meaning that the surrounding neurons that are here, they need oxygen and nutrients and everything from these vessels. If these vessels disappear, you’re going to lose neurons, right? So, exercise is the number one thing."