Toronto, May 15 (TIWN) It's never too late to lace up shoes and work up a sweat for brain health as older adults, even couch potatoes, may perform better on certain thinking and memory tests after just six months of aerobic exercise, says a new study.

Researchers found that after six months of exercise, participants improved by 5.7 per cent on tests of executive function, which includes mental flexibility and self-correction.

Verbal fluency, that tests how quickly you can retrieve information, increased by 2.4 per cent. This change in verbal fluency is what one can expect to see in someone five years younger.

"As we all find out eventually, we lose a bit mentally and physically as we age. But even if you start an exercise programme later in life, the benefit to your brain may be immense," said study author Marc J Poulin from University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.