Rethinking Exercise: How Too Much Can Speed Up Aging, According to Finnish Study (2023)

Yes, this is very odd. Exercise is healthy because it lowers blood pressure and BMI. They compensate for blood pressure and BMI, and lo and behold, no health effects are left..

> "Conclusion: Being active may reflect a healthy phenotype instead of causally reducing mortality." Therefore, the paper isn't supporting the article claim that too much exercise is speeding up aging...

The article claim as of when I clicked through:

“This outcome suggests that the longevity associated with physically active individuals could stem more from their overall healthier lifestyles rather than the exercise itself.”

So my takeaway from the article was it's less about the exercise, more about overall health, and, moderation rather than long tail. That seems consistent.

> rather, that this is dominated by genetics.

On the contrary, not sure that's what the paper says, as that implies the exclusion of overall health lifestyle.

Note that phenotype can mean observable characteristics or traits, rather than strictly/solely genetic traits. The usage is common to mean something like "overall health profile".

The paper describes aim to remove paired environments and paired genetics. Diagrams depict control for "familial factors" described as covering "environmental" and "genetics", aiming to remove these from the comparison.

> mainly attenuated

> may reflect

So the study acknowledges that this is all not yet settled. The (potentially damaging) effect of excessive exercise may be stronger what the study found, or it may be neutral (i.e., not actually extending lifespan, but not damaging it either)

It remains to be seen what further studies reveal, but for now the blog is not far off in speculating a potentially damaging effect.

So is it like if a man is physically active but works blue collar low paid job with a lot of physical activity and lives alone and has no degree and probably drinks/smokes lots etc then it is correlated with quicker aging? No shit.

Why even report non adjusted stats then? They just wanted sensational press buzz? Or maybe these stats are still significant?

Thank you!

> Being active may reflect a healthy phenotype instead of causally reducing mortality.

So the people that are healthier do more exercises and also die older but not causally

People need to think of exercise as more for mental/cardio health and muscular system maintenance.. while weight management being 99% controlled by diet.

The incremental exercise to burn off last nights dessert is a LOT, and probably easier to just have dessert a bit less often.

True, but if exercise is potentially actually aging you faster, then it is only a matter of time until your quality of life is prematurely compromised, no?

I'd propose that the key to most things in life is moderation through listening to your body. Whether its exercise, food, alcohol, or being in the sun too long your body will warn you if you listen.

Its a skill that we seem to have lost very quickly in the age of modern medicine, pharmaceuticals, and digital technology that distracts us with bright lights and promises to track everything and be able to tell us how to moderate so our bodies don't have to.

If you work full time and have any amount of social life you just cannot exercise too much imho, it just doesn't fit in the schedule. Most people don't even walk 5k steps a day and have 0 exercise outside of that.

I walk an hour per day and exercise an hour 5-6 days out of 7, I consider myself barely active in the grand scheme of things, I'm doing the strict minimum to not rot away at my desk job

As far as I know the only people who really suffer from over training are professional athletes or people who have poor routine

Bad study aside, a vast amount of people, including probably 99.999% of HN will get nowhere near exercising “too much.” Even if you’re initially fatigued from starting an exercise regimen, that’s just a normal body adjustment period. So I’d say not to worry about it. You can “overreach” at times, going further than you’re ready for, but sustained long-term “too much” exercise is going to be when nearing an elite level of fitness for most people.

I would say, listen to your body. If it says, "I'm fatigued" then give it a rest. If you're catching too many colds - from your immune system being stressed - give it a rest.

It's not necessary to work out *every* day. It's ok to take one or more days off. It's ok to recover.

There's probably blood work that can test for various things (i.e., over-training) but I don't know any off hand.

Just like the craze over drinking 3L of water every day which turned out to be worse than just drinking when you're thirsty, I would suspect just doing what your body tells you is probably best. If you're feeling completely exhausted afterwards, you probably overdid it. If you have so much energy left over that you can't sleep, you under-did it or drank too much caffeine.

> So moderate exercise is the optimal. Not too much or too little. But how does one know what is too much? It is different for different people.

"too much" is sky high. Like "training for Tor des Géants" high.

I don't think that anyone being leisurely active can even graze the training-too-much zone.

Physical activity, not exercise

Exercise is something you added

If you can walk and just walk sufficient amount (not just to the cat and from the car) regularly you probably count as physically active

I often think about that pic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FhNp_Q8XgAA3O9q?format=jpg&name=...

I think the relatively low risk of injury is negligible when you think of the insane gain in quality of life. I know a 82 years old who ski every single day in winter, cuts his own wood, &c. I know people 1/3rd of his age in much worse shape