Five minutes of jumping or thirty minutes on a treadmill or static bicycle were enough to produce appreciable improvements in inhibitory control or in cognitive and executive functions .
Benefits following exercise were also seen in other aspects such as reaction times and preparation for response , motor skills or brain activity .
CONCLUSION The findings make us optimistic that in the future physical exercise may become an alternative , or at least an effective complement , to the pharmacological treatments currently used for this pathology
BACKGROUND There are studies that show preliminary evidence of the benefits of physical exercise for people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ( ADHD ) .
The objective of the research being reported here was to carry out a systematic review of articles relating to the effects that exercise sessions have on children and adolescents with this pathology .
Exercise
The greater  coronary heart disease morbidity of  sedentary as opposed to physically active workers was demonstrated many years ago by J N Morris and his colleagues in a comparison of London bus drivers and conductors . These two groups of transport workers belonged to the same social class and had similar lifestyles . They differed principally in the amount of physical activity in which they engaged when at work . The drivers were confined to a small enclosed driving compartment which rendered them almost completely immobile , whilst the conductors were continuously active , especially as they constantly had to run up and down the stairs of the doubledecker London buses . During the five-year follow-up the drivers had a CHD incidence almost double that of the conductors . The differences between the two groups became greater as their members grew older ( Table IX.1 ) . ' The finding of this untoward accompaniment of physical inactivity has been confirmed by the results of the Framingham study 2 and a 27 cohort based rigorous meta- analysis reported by Jesse Berlin and Graham Colditz . These authors found a relative risk of death from coronary heart disease of 1.9 ( CL 1.6 - 2.2 ) for sedentary as opposed to high physical activity groups , and the benefits were shown to be greater in the studies that the authors judged to be method ologically stronger.3 Conversely , in the Whitehall study of British civil servants leisure-time physical activity has been found to have cardiovascular health benefits similar to those apparently conferred on the London bus conductors by their workaday exertions . Vigorous weekend exercise apparently protected the middle-aged men from fatal heart attacks and non-fatal first episodes of coronary heart disease.4 It is probable that a r and omized and controlled prospect i ve study of the cardiovascular consequences of prolonged inactivity will never be undertaken . It would be both unethical and impractical to enforce a long-term sedentary lifestyle on a control group . However , the physiological means by which regular exercise has cardioprotective effects are now well defined . Animal studies have shown that the coronary arterial capacity becomes greater relative to the cardiac muscle mass and an increase in coronary artery diameter has been demonstrated angiographically . Capillary growth is induced and increase in coronary blood flow in response to
Five minutes of jumping or thirty minutes on a treadmill or static bicycle were enough to produce appreciable improvements in inhibitory control or in cognitive and executive functions .
Benefits following exercise were also seen in other aspects such as reaction times and preparation for response , motor skills or brain activity .
CONCLUSION The findings make us optimistic that in the future physical exercise may become an alternative , or at least an effective complement , to the pharmacological treatments currently used for this pathology
BACKGROUND There are studies that show preliminary evidence of the benefits of physical exercise for people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ( ADHD ) .
The objective of the research being reported here was to carry out a systematic review of articles relating to the effects that exercise sessions have on children and adolescents with this pathology .