Fitness
The ‘disgustingly small’ amount of exercise each day that slashes the risk of cancer: fitness expert
Exercising a “disgustingly small” amount per day can lower the risk of cancer, according to a fitness expert.
Nutritional scientist and professional bodybuilder Dr. Layne Norton claimed that “four minutes of vigorous activity a day” will greatly reduce an individual’s cancer risk.
“Exercise is one of the only things that you can do, independent of weight loss, that will improve all your health parameters,” Norton told host Dr. Rhonda Patrick on the FoundMyFitness podcast last week.
Citing a study published last year in JAMA Oncology, Norton said that researchers found that “vigorous physical activity” done “cumulative” throughout the day can lower the risk of cancer by 20%.
“I got in trouble because I called it a disgustingly small amount, but it really is,” the fitness expert shared.
He went on to reveal that the study found that exercising for “10 minutes” daily dropped the risk of cancer by 30%.
The study also found that just three short bursts of exercise per day can lead to a 40% reduced risk of cancer and cancer death and a 50% reduction in heart disease death.
“If you just go walk vigorously for 30 minutes in a day you’re killing it,” the nutritional scientist said.
While some may question the findings because it was a “cohort study,” Norton quickly pointed out that “randomized control trials” have found similar indications to exercise and cancer risk.
“We have randomized control trials looking at very short bursts of exercise, seeing improvements in glucose metabolism, blood lipids, inflammation, and then now the cognitive stuff too,” Norton shared.
The fitness guru also shared that short periods of exercise have been shown to improve mental health.
He explained that the “randomized control trial” found that men with “major depressive disorder or general anxiety disorder” who did two 25-minute sessions of resistance training a week for eight weeks saw “significantly improved symptoms.”
“The effect size for major depressive disorder was 1.7,” Norton said, citing a study released last year in Psychiatry Research.
“For those who aren’t familiar with effect sizes, .2 is a small effect size, 0.5 is modest, and 0.8. Anything above 0.8 is considered large, 1.7 is massive,” Norton said.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) — a class of drugs that are commonly prescribed to treat depression — usually fall between 0.3 to 0.8, and “the best you see is about 0.8,” he shared.
The professional bodybuilder clarified he wasn’t suggesting people should stop taking their SSRIs instead of working out but to consider other additional options to add to treatment — like exercising.
“I’m not saying we should get rid of SSRIs and have everybody exercise because sometimes maybe someone needs an SSRI just to get out of bed and actually go exercise,” Norton said. “But if we’re looking at how powerful that lever is, that’s amazing.”
However, nutritional scientists understand that getting started with routine exercise can be challenging and suggest that listeners consider it like “brushing your teeth.”
“Do you feel motivated to brush your teeth? No, you do it because you know if you don’t brush your teeth, they’re going to go to crap,” Norton said. “The same thing happens with your body if you don’t exercise.”
According to Johns Hopkins cardiologist Dr. Seth Martin, the average resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 beats per minute (BPM).
The “sweet spot” for exercise depends on a person’s age, and the target heart rate is “usually between 50 percent and 85 percent” of their maximum safe heart rate.
For a 50-year-old, it’s crucial to calculate the maximum heart rate, which can be obtained by subtracting the age from 220. In this case, it’s 170 BPM, Martin shared.
If someone aims for a 50% exertion level, their target should be 50% of that maximum, 85 BPM.
However, if a person wants to push themself to 85% of the maximum, their target should be 145 BPM.
The target heart rate that a 50-year-old should aim for during exercise is 85 to 145 BPM.
Martin noted that it’s important not to “get overly fixated on numbers” and instead just strive to exercise regularly.
While exercise is known to improve memory, scientists have mostly studied this effect by using behavioral tests or brain imaging methods like MRIs, says Michelle Voss, PhD, one of the study’s authors, a professor, and the director of the Health, Brain, and Cognitive Lab at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
But she says these approaches can’t precisely identify where “ripples” originate, particularly in the deep brain structures like the hippocampus, a part of the brain strongly connected to memory and learning, she says.
The current study, published in Brain Communications, recorded electrical activity directly, using surgically implanted (intracranial) electrodes. “This allowed us to observe how exercise changes the brain’s memory circuits in real time,” Dr. Voss says.
20-Minute Bursts of Exercise Increase Brain Ripples
The participants performed a 5-minute warm-up and then rode a stationary bike for 20 minutes at a pace they could maintain. Researchers recorded their brain activity before and after the biking session.
The electrodes showed an increased rate of so-called sharp-wave ripples from the hippocampus and connections with cortical regions of the brain, which are involved in learning and memory.
“Sharp-wave ripples have long been known from animal studies to play a central role in memory,” Voss says, adding that recent studies using intracranial recordings in humans also support the importance of ripples for human memory.
“Our findings are the first to show that exercise can modulate these ripple signals in the human brain,” she says.
Researchers also observed that larger increases in heart rate during exercise were associated with larger changes in ripple activity in cortical networks, Voss adds.
What’s Already Known About Exercise, Memory, and Learning
Exercise helps build connections between neurons, which deepens and strengthens brain networks, Franssen says.
Physical activity also improves metabolism, which improves insulin sensitivity, helping blood sugar regulation and giving the brain a “more stable and reliable supply of fuel,” Dr. Perlmutter says.
“This is critically important because the brain is an energy-intensive organ, consuming roughly 20 percent of the body’s energy despite representing only a small fraction of body weight,” he adds.
The Research Has Limitations
Voss says researchers were careful to “exclude signals that contained epileptic activity. However, of course, we can’t statistically control for the accumulated effects of having epilepsy on the brain.”
The exercise-brain ripple patterns observed in the current study also closely match those observed in healthy adults using noninvasive brain imaging, such as MRI, she added.
“That convergence across very different methods is one of the strongest indicators that the effects are not specific to epilepsy, but reflect a more general human brain response to exercise,” Voss said.
Researchers also didn’t directly test memory performance, Voss notes. “While hippocampal ripples are strongly linked to memory processing in decades of neuroscience research, the next step will be to measure how exercise-related changes in ripples relate to memory performance in the same individuals.”
Future studies should also compare exercise with other everyday activities, such as sitting quietly or light movement, to determine how specific these effects are to aerobic exercise at the intensity that was studied, she says.
Satisfy Your Brain’s Exercise Craving
It’s never too early or too late to start exercising for brain health, Franssen says.
People of any age, from grade-school children to people in their nineties, can benefit from increased physical activity, Perlmutter says. “My recommendation is to consider taking advantage of the connection between physical activity and brain health across the entire range of human aging.”
Any type of exercise is great, Franssen says, but especially “repetitive behaviors,” like swimming, jogging, and walking.
“Sometimes we let the hugeness of putting in a huge fitness routine get in our way,” she says. “Having a little exercise snack every so often is also very important to improving cognition.”
Increasing our level of physical fitness leads to a bigger release of brain-boosting proteins following one session of exercise, a new study led by a UCL researcher has found.
The study, published in Brain Research, took a group of inactive unfit participants through a 12-week training programme of cycling three times per week and made them fitter. Researchers found as their fitness increased, so did the amount of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) released following exercise, resulting in improved brain function.
Just 15 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise releases BDNF, a brain protein which is known to support the formation of new neurons and new synapses (connections between brain cells), and maintains the health of existing neurons. This is the first study to show that for unfit people, just 12 weeks of consistent training can boost the brain’s response to a single 15-minute workout.
The study, led by Dr Flaminia Ronca (UCL Surgery & Interventional Science, and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health), involved 30 participants – 23 male and seven female – taking part in the 12-week programme. To assess fitness levels throughout the programme, participants completed VO2max tests every six weeks, which measures the maximum rate of oxygen your body can consume and use during intense exercise.
BDNF levels were measured pre- and post-VO2max testing, alongside a series of cognitive and memory tests, while also measuring changes in brain activity in the prefrontal cortex – where executive functions such as decision-making, emotion regulation, attention and impulsivity are controlled.
By the final week of the trial, results showed that baseline levels of BDNF did not change, but participants did show a larger spike of BDNF following intense exercise, compared to how their brains responded to intense exercise before the 12-week programme. This was linked to improvements in VO2max (aerobic fitness).
Higher overall BDNF levels and stronger exercise-induced increases were also associated with changes in activity across key areas of the prefrontal cortex during attention and inhibition tasks, though not during memory tasks.
Overall, the results showed that increasing physical fitness can enhance the brain’s ability to produce BDNF in response to acute bouts of exercise, which can have a strong positive influence on neural activity.
Lead author Dr Flaminia Ronca said: “We’ve known for a while that exercise is good for our brain, but the mechanisms through which this occurs are still being disentangled. The most exciting finding from our study is that if we become fitter, our brains benefit even more from a single session of exercise, and this can change in only six weeks.”
Notes to editors:
For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact: Tom Cramp, UCL Media Relations , T: +447586 711698, E: [email protected]
The research paper: ‘BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise’, Flaminia Ronca, Cian Xu, Ellen Kong, Dennis Chan, Antonia Hamilton, Giampietro Schiavo, Ilias Tachtsidis, Paola Pinti, Benjamin Tari, Tom Gurney, Paul W. Burgess, is published in Brain Research, March 2026,
About UCL (University College London)
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Since 1826, we have championed independent thought by attracting and nurturing the world’s best minds. Our community of more than 50,000 students from 150 countries and over 16,000 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.
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Journal
Brain Research
DOI
10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise
Article Publication Date
4-Mar-2026
Media Contact
Tom Cramp
University College London
[email protected]
Journal
Brain Research
DOI
10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253
Journal
Brain Research
DOI
10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150253
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
BDNF relates to prefrontal cortex activity in the context of physical exercise
Article Publication Date
4-Mar-2026
Tags
/Health and medicine/Human health/Physical exercise
bu içeriği en az 2000 kelime olacak şekilde ve alt başlıklar ve madde içermiyecek şekilde ünlü bir science magazine için İngilizce olarak yeniden yaz. Teknik açıklamalar içersin ve viral olacak şekilde İngilizce yaz. Haber dışında başka bir şey içermesin. Haber içerisinde en az 12 paragraf ve her bir paragrafta da en az 50 kelime olsun. Cevapta sadece haber olsun. Ayrıca haberi yazdıktan sonra içerikten yararlanarak aşağıdaki başlıkların bilgisi var ise haberin altında doldur. Eğer yoksa bilgisi ilgili kısmı yazma.:
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Keywords
Tags: 12-week cycling training program benefitsbrain plasticity and physical fitnessbrain-derived neurotrophic factor after exerciseeffects of aerobic exercise on BDNFexercise and neuron healthexercise-induced neurogenesisfitness level impact on brain proteinsfitness training for cognitive improvementimproving brain function through fitnessmoderate to vigorous aerobic exercise effectsphysical fitness and brain healthVO2max and brain function correlation
SOLE Fitness announces new additions to its home exercise bike range, with models including built-in screens, resistance systems, and notably, zero monthly subscription fees.
— SOLE Fitness has announced a new range of home exercise bikes aligning with its policy against mandatory monthly subscription fees – addressing a growing concern among cost-conscious fitness enthusiasts.
For more information, visit: https://www.soletreadmills.com/collections/bikes
The announcement comes as subscription fatigue intensifies across the home fitness market – where hidden costs of ongoing memberships have become a significant pain point for buyers. Many consumers now actively seek alternatives that deliver premium features without the financial burden of perpetual fees – and SOLE Fitness offers its range in direct response.
Technical capabilities across the range support the no-subscription experience through innovative design and robust hardware. For instance, SOLE Fitness cites the SB1200 exercise bike as a suitable option for its 10-inch touchscreen – including preloaded entertainment applications.
SOLE’s team notes that this particular model also incorporates 100 levels of adjustable magnetic resistance, offering a broad spectrum of intensity for diverse workout preferences. A 35-pound flywheel contributes to smooth, consistent pedaling motion, while the durable steel frame supports users up to 300 pounds.
Elsewhere in the range, SOLE Fitness offers options across recumbent, upright, and indoor cycling styles to accommodate different fitness goals and space constraints.
The LCR Recumbent Bike is an example of a comfortable seated design with back support, ideal for low-impact cardio sessions, coming with 40 levels of magnetic resistance. The B94 Upright Bike, meanwhile, delivers a traditional bike posture with 20 levels of resistance, suited for users seeking straightforward training without advanced touchscreen features.
Central to the value proposition is the SOLE+ App, which provides zero-cost online fitness classes to customers who own SOLE equipment. The app offers hundreds of home gym video tutorials ranging from basic to advanced routines – standing in contrast to platforms that charge separately for similar content.
As explained by SOLE Fitness, its overall range is engineered for smooth, silent rides through magnetic resistance systems, sturdy steel frames, and precision components that deliver a premium indoor cycling experience. Magnetic resistance eliminates the wear and noise associated with friction pads, while the structural integrity of the frames ensures stability during high-intensity intervals.
“Each treadmill is crafted to provide an unparalleled exercise experience, featuring robust motors, intuitive controls, and cushioned running surfaces for maximum impact absorption,” says a company representative.
Moreover, since the company’s product portfolio is designed to offer entry points at various price levels, customers have readily available access to select models that align with their own budget and training preferences.
Interested parties can browse the full selection at: https://www.soletreadmills.com/
Contact Info:
Name: Inquiries
Email: Send Email
Organization: SOLE Fitness
Address: 56 Exchange Pl., Salt Lake City, UT 84111, United States
Website: https://www.soletreadmills.com/
Release ID: 89185487
If you encounter any issues, discrepancies, or concerns regarding the content provided in this press release, or if there is a need for a press release takedown, we urge you to notify us without delay at error@releasecontact.com (it is important to note that this email is the authorized channel for such matters, sending multiple emails to multiple addresses does not necessarily help expedite your request). Our expert team will be available to promptly respond within 8 hours – ensuring swift resolution of identified issues or offering guidance on removal procedures. Delivering accurate and reliable information is fundamental to our mission.
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