Does exercise slow the aging process?
well.blogs.nytimes.com
well.blogs.nytimes.com
Bodies are like machines, if you use them a lot they will wear out because of over-use. If you use them very little they will atrophy.
The balance is probably somewhere in the middle, yes, exercise but don't overdo it.
One crucial difference between humans and machines is that humans regenerate and can grow stronger through careful exertion.
With that said, many (most?) top athletes go their entire careers without a joint problem at all.
It does take one 4-5 years to build up to that even from non-sedentary active lifestyles, otherwise maintaining energy for everything else will be impossible.
And my (completely speculatory) hypothesis is that amateur sports (or some pro-sports) or serious goal-oriented strength/physique training will offer benefits down the line, as long as you quit "heavy" exercise after a reasonable amount of time and maintain a moderate amount of exercise for the rest of your life.
After all, Tour de France riders of the past century outlive us by many years, despite most allegedly having been on quite a comprehensive cocktail of anabolic steroids, erythropoietin stimulating drugs, amphetamines, etc..
For those non-repairable components what you want to do is build up the muscle around them. People are so scared about hurting their backs that they avoid doing any exercises to make the muscles that stabilize the lower back stronger. I routinely have people tell me at the gym they do not dead lift because they do not want to hurt their backs. The problem is a) learning to DL will teach you how to lift properly and b) it will strengthen the muscles in your back.
For the record I tore my ACL doing inverts on the wakeboard. Not exactly typical exercising.
1) any individual cell, once X energy passes through them, they senescence
2) from the ovum you grew out of until the last cell alive when you die, only 128 cell divisions happen in that line.
That means there is a finite supply of these repair components, these cells, and so there is a limit to how much energy can go through your body before you die.
Therefore, you probably want to make sure "peak" effort in any reasonable time interval (e.g. a month, maybe a week) is pretty high, to encourage the machinery to remain well-maintained, but average effort is as low as possible.
You should exercise to have a huge amount of effort for maybe 10-15 minutes per month, sprinting for instance, getting your heartrate up to 130+, and keeping it up for a short while, maybe 20-30 minutes, no more. Other than that, you should probably avoid exercise and eat healthy.
There are other reasons gym is not a particularly good kind of exercise. It's just not very realistic. Running or biking in the real world, aside from being more fun than in a gym, is also a lot better for you. And probably, having a weekly game of basketball is far better than that.
Interesting. I have a single anecdata point that short-duration heavy lifting cures the degenerative effects of putting miles on one's knees and hips.
The habit stuck, but over time, my knees (right knee in particular) really began to ache and swell badly. Overall energy began declining also, but that's beyond the scope of this context.
At the suggestion of some local "gym bros", I swapped out carbohydrates for fats and switched half of the endurance exercise for resistance exercise. At first it hurt, but over the course of a couple months, my knee issues disappeared completely.
But again, single anecdata point.
BTW, started lifting based on a book suggested on an HN thread years ago: "Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training" by Mark Rippetoe.
It's a fantastic book for getting into novice strength training, and is fairly entertaining to boot.
10 years ago I got rather bad back problems. I tried karate, running, walking in mountains. It did not help. Then 6 years ago I went vegan for ethical reasons resulting in a drastic diet change. I expected that would affect my health - something for better (like back pain), something for worse. To my surprise that had no effects for health.
Then 3 years ago I read book from www.bodybyscience.net and started strength training. That really helped. Chronic back pain gradually became less bothering. The last time I experienced its acute form when one has to lay for few days was 18 months ago when previously it was 2-3 times per year. The best pert is that I only train once per week for 15-20 minutes.
Also, I like to make it intensive cardio, which (I'm just picking it up again now, so past tense) tended to leave me with the most energy I've ever had in my life.
Over the years, improving my lifting has helped with my posture, hip flexor problems etc.
I guess this may be common knowledge in some exercise circles... but it is probably not common knowledge with the general public.
This article has a summary, though there may be better ones:
http://gettingstronger.org/2013/07/antifragile/
How does the barbell strategy apply to health? A great example is combining occasional, high intensity weight lifting or interval training, alternating with long stretches of rest, recovery and “doing nothing”. The intermittent stress of lifting an extreme weight pushes the body to overcompensate and prepare for an even greater future challenge, but the interlude of rest and recovery is restorative and avoids the downside of chronic overuse. We can extend this idea of a bimodal “barbell” strategy to practices such as intermittent fasting or cold showers. The barbell strategy is the exact opposite of the conventional wisdom to engage in moderate aerobic exercise on the treadmill every day, or to eat regular small meals throughout the day.
Long bouts of endurance exercise can be very taxing and destructive to many body parts.
Exercise as a whole can be done efficiently and effectively without wearing your body out.
Anaerobic exercise (lifting weights) can improve collagen and muscle production via several hormonal pathways. These same pathways tend to have negative feedbacks from excess aerobic exercise (i.e. high cortisol, low GH output in distance athletes).
The data on intense weight-lifting on the other hand is much more conclusive. Heart enargement, aortic dissection and a host of other heart related risks are sharply higher for extreme weightlifters.
Lifting a couple of days a week and doing cardio 3-4 days a week and not going completely nuts with either is probably the safest. But sometimes it's fun to go nuts and shoot for a goal. In the big scheme of things, there are a lot worse hobbies to have.
Again with the extremes; people don't get "big" on accident, and moderate strength training provides a whole host of benefits without the dangers. More people should be lifting, with proper form and modest goals.
How much of that is due to exercise regimes, and how much is due to PEDs? Steroid use is rampant even among semi-serious lifters, and not many people on drugs admit to it.
I'm asking these questions because I have been seeing more and more comments along the lines of exercising wears the body out and it breaks, so do not exercise. Exercising with proper form and rest should not do this. In fact the body should be getting stronger. One of the big things I see, particularly with runners and cyclists is very little thought to proper form. Running and cycling appear easy so I think people often do not think about form or technique.
My knees are actually better, though. I've had 3 operations on my left knee and if I don't walk it gets very arthritic. With walking, it's fine.
This is a poor analogy. Bodies can heal (i.e. regenerate tissue). Machines cannot. If this analogy was true, ultra-marathoners would be wearing out their joints rapidly. That's not what is being observed though.
What is true is that you can injure joints by increasing the workload too fast. Joints can strengthen and adapt to increased loads but it happens slowly. So don't go from running 5 miles per outing to running 10 miles. Limit yourself to a gradual increase.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948208,0...
The issue here is more if the oxidative stress put on your components is offset or even completely overshadowed by the biochemical benefits of exercise, and there is indeed reason to believe that a moderate exercise regime - not unsurprisingly - may yield optimal results.
Exercise too little and your body's machinery will start to suffer from use-it-or-lose-it symptoms. Exercise too much and you will cause an inordinate amount of mechanical wear that cannot be regenerated, plus there may be some biochemical stresses as well.
I know "do it in moderation" makes for a shitty headline that interests nobody, but all things being equal that should probably be the take-away here. I agree with you about gradual increase being advisable, but perpetually aiming for your physical limits may not be the most appropriate course of action for individuals who are already fit.
Underrated point. This is especially noticeable carrying packs. If you don't train to improve your joint strength (tendons and surrounding tissue, not muscle) you will injure yourself. Slowly you can build up to heavier weights. I now regularly train with 10kg, occasionally 15kg and alternate with 1kg. 2000km this year.
The one I have is one of these -- http://www.electrabike.com/bikes/townie/original-3i-3i-eq?g=...
Eh, yes and no. The modern road bike geometry looks the way it does because of the rules in the governing body (the UCI). Up until very recently, they were more interested in keeping tradition, then technological improvements. Think of a bike geometry and design much like an F1 class of race cars.
A faster bike on the road would be a recumbent, and by quite a bit, as recumbents are much more aerodynamic. An added benefit to some is any saddle issues could go away, as there's no saddle, just a seat.
I could also see that the aggressive posture needed to maximize aerodynamics on a regular road bike in an attempt to squeeze out the maximum amount of aerodynamic advantage on a platform that's really not all about that could cause problems in some people, and relaxing this would be more comfortable, without a doubt - exactly like you have observed. You do need an amount of strength and flexibility to stay in those aerodynamic postures.
I've had minor knee issues with riding bikes (and I ride a lot of them!) I was fearing the worse - overuse sounded plausible. Rather, it was simply a muscle imbalance from riding so much, which was pulling me knee in funny ways. PT, stretching, and specific exercises - as well as getting fit for my bike correctly, I've cleared that up, and since have ridden thousands and thousands of miles.
Can you define what you mean by "a lot" in both number of years and typical time spent? Typical routine?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19633305
Atherosclerosis =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21200345
http://www.healio.com/cardiology/chd-prevention/news/online/...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18426850
Oxidative Stress =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16941810
I've observed having an higher cadence seems to impact less my knees and my back, I've no hard evidence though, it is just modifications I made along the years on my training.
Or the other option is maybe your hip was doomed if you biked or not... not sure how to totally tease that out with out identical twins studies..
This concept is absolutely false. With a proper setup, you should be able to ride all you want without anything "wearing out". Bodies don't "wear out", in fact they respond well when stress is applied correctly. It gets harder as you age, but that's an orthogonal issue. Injury and recovery is part of being active.
I've done 10 Ironmans and seen many, many people in their 40s, 50s, 60s happily cranking out miles and ending up looking younger than when they started. What wears bodies out is not using them.
Moreover, it's possible that the tissues most susceptible to oxidative stress during exercise (i.e. muscle) are also most adapted to handle it. So overall, yes ROS increase but mostly just in muscle where it is well-adapted to handle it, and the benefits of exercise (lowering blood pressure, better circulation, etc) trump any detriments of increased ROS.
Edit: Found this review [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23434764 ] that considers evidence that ROS may actually be a part of a pro-survival signal cascade
We're not finished with it yet, but initially, I find it interesting.
I don't know if you can necessarily compare this to tons of calories (think fat from an animal) into a bit of food. Now the source of the calories yes.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17177251
>The idea is that humans were meant to move more throughout the day
My parents are always on the go gardening, going to auctions, walking a bit, always doing something. Dad eats a lot but eats everything fish, shellfish, many kinds of meat, all kinds of vegetables he gets a huge variety of food.
I'm sitting watching my computer screen not moving, I eat a limited diet and I think I will be worse off than my parents. And I think Millennials will be even worse I've never seen so many fat people at such a young age, at least bottom out at mid 40s and not mid teens.
> ...
> So the message seems clear, he says. “Exercise is good” for your cells, and “more exercise in greater variety” is likely to be even better.
Fascinating -- the first quoted sentence is logically equivalent to saying, "If you have short telomeres you're statistically unlikely to exercise much."
The conclusion that exercise leads to shorter telomeres is empowering and optimistic, so it's no surprised the American scientists and press ran with it. The conclusion that people who exercise regularly are genetically predisposed to it is disempowering, though, and it wasn't mentioned at all. (It is consistent with jasode's sibling comment that exercise can speed up the ageing process, though.)
I'd also be interested in the inverse correlation -- are sedentary lifestyles associated with shorter telomeres? What proportion of people in the study actually did exercise, and what proportion had shorter telomeres? Essentially, "show me the numbers in all of the boxes and let me draw my own conclusions."
A lot of people talk about exercise being valuable because it makes you healthy. I like all the wonderful benefits of being healthy and in good shape, yes, but I also genuinely like exercise. There is basically nothing as incredible as the right kind of physical exertion for me.
If exercise is a vice, who cares? It's worth it.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=159410&Cult...
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep18259
An open access paper on exercise in identical and non-identical twin pairs was recently published, the data suggesting that long-term differences in physical activity between identical twins don't result in any significant difference in longevity, even though other differences in health outcomes are observed. We might draw parallels between this and similar results observed in a mouse study from a few years back, in which the exercising mice had better health but no increase in maximum life span. The researchers here theorize that the well-known epidemiological association between exercise and increased life expectancy is perhaps as much a matter of genetics as of choice.
For any observed statistical relationship in humans there are always questions of causation. This is especially true in the web of associations related to aging and mortality in population data, in which life expectancy, wealth, social status, intelligence, education, exercise, diet, and culture all have ties to one another. That we pay great attention to these relationships is a function of having no good way to treat aging, I've long thought: we care about trivial differences in life expectancy of a few years here and a few years there because this is all that is in our power to change right now, and that will continue until the development of rejuvenation therapies. Life expectancy and exercise are linked robustly in many data sets, and even more so now that accelerometers are so cheap and ubiquitous that even large studies can use them to obtain actual rather than self-reported data on physical activity. There are studies to demonstrate longer life expectancy in athletes, longer life expectancy in those who exercise modestly versus those who are sedentary, and so forth. What are these studies measuring, however? For example, what if people who are more robust and would live longer regardless of exercise tend to exercise more? Or perhaps exercise levels are a good proxy for lower levels of visceral fat tissue and consequent chronic inflammation - themselves linked to greater risk of age-related disease and mortality.
The results of this study definitely muddy the waters in the search for causation and mechanism in exercise and mortality reduction, providing evidence to support a state of considerable complexity in the relationship between exercise, genetics, and outcomes in health. Nothing in biology is ever as simple as we'd like it to be, so this should perhaps be expected. Regardless he data presented below should be added to the many past studies on exercise and mortality, and its weight balanced accordingly - never take any single set of data and interpretations as gospel in science. This doesn't change the consensus, which is that you should exercise, and that you are expected to obtain benefits by doing so. It does add subtlety to the picture, however.
Of course other factors matter. Air quality, variety of foods, water sources, sleep patterns, noise, stress, ecology in general.
There is nothing new about these notions - actively working peasants in unspoiled remote areas are champions of longevity.
And let me be even more direct: you're endorphins junkies!
No. It just makes the comments less valuable. I come to this site because of the diversity of insight and high quality of posts. No one is tallying the stances and declaring a "winner".
100,000 anti-vaxxer posts aren't going to make me an anti-vaxxer. One post that goes into the details of the molecular mechanisms that show how the chemicals in vaccines cause autism might (not that I expect it to happen, since it's baloney, but I hope you take my point).
[0]: https://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2476...
I hope I didn't come off that way, that was not my intention.
> I don't care about you or everybody that I won't be able to help; I care about the one person who I would help
Yes - my point is that that person might have been me. If you have an insight into a truth and you want to share it, but share it ineffectively, then we all lose.
If I read this correctly, you imply that "creating new cells" is somehow an alternative to cell division. This isn't true - cell division is in fact the only mechanism by which new cells normally(1) come to life.
Consequently if the GP was correct in general in saying that cells can divide only a limited number of times then yes, eventually the organism would lose the ability to regenerate and die. The reality is that not all cells have a limit on the number of divisions. Majority of differentiated cells do, but a few special types of cells have no such limit. These are called stem cells. Many tissues have stems cells on standby waiting for signals that trigger regeneration. Cancer cells often break out of the limit, too (2).
Telomeres provide a mechanism that limits the number of cell divisions - they get shortened on each division and once they become too short the cell loses the ability to divide further. Stems cells (and some cancer cells) express an enzyme called telomerase (3) that extends the telomeres to their original length after cell division.
(1) Reproductive cells (sperms and ovums) can also create a new cell by merging, but this isn't relevant for somatic cells.
(2) Cancer is a neat demonstration of the dangers that uncontrolled cell division poses for a complex organism and explains why most types of cells have their division machinery restricted or disabled.
I maintain the world's biggest spread sheet of life span experiments.
I believe slowing aging can increase life span.
It turns out that the effect of exercise on all-cause mortality is well studied.
My big spread sheet summarizes about 80 experiments.
They show that exercise usually lets us live longer.
A histogram of their results is at
http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=&media=science:histogram_of_exercise_vs_all_cause_mortality.png
I'm told that over-training is worse than no training, and just working up a light sweat is good.
More findings from data mining my big spread sheet of life span experiments are at
http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/doku.php?id=science:kingsleys_big_spread_sheet_of_life_span_experimentsI maintain the world's biggest spread sheet of life span experiments.
I believe slowing aging can increase life span.
It turns out that the effect of exercise on all-cause mortality is well studied.
My big spread sheet summarizes about 80 exercise experiments.
They show that exercise usually lets us live longer.
A histogram of their results is at
http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=&media=science:histogram_of_exercise_vs_all_cause_mortality.png
I'm told that over-training is worse than no training, and just working up a light sweat is good.
More findings from data mining my big spread sheet of life span experiments are at
http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/doku.php?id=science:kingsleys_big_spread_sheet_of_life_span_experiments