According to this recent article in Parkinson’s News Today, weight training is just as effective as strenuous aerobic exercise if you want to delay Parkinson’s progression.
Lab experiments with mice (once again, those lucky mice! Oh, those lucky mice!) revealed that their brains remained healthy regardless of whether they were forced to run excessively on a treadmill (aerobic activity) or had weights tied to their tail while they climbed ladders (strength training).
The article suggests both kinds of exercise may help Parkies delay the onset of dyskinesia, the involuntary muscle movements that occur after you’ve been a few years on Sinemet or other PD drugs.
Quotes:
The results showed that physical training, regardless of the type, protects neurons of a specific region in the brain affected in PD known as the striatum. Exercise restored the activity levels of enzymes (complex I and Sirtuin 1) important for mitochondrial function and therefore for neuronal survival.
…
Moreover, these results support the benefits of exercise in PD patients already proposed by the clinicians to manage symptoms and probably slow down disease progression.
