-Dr. Kathy Johnson
A new research indicates that intensive exercise prevents the aging of cardiovascular system by preventing telomere shortening – a DNA that bookends chromosome, causing protective effect against aging. Researchers measured the length of telomeres in blood samples from two groups of professional athletes and two groups of healthy nonsmokers, but not regular exercisers.
“The most significant finding of this study is that physical exercise of professional athletes causes activation of the important enzyme telomerase, thereby stabilizing the telomere,” said Ulrich Laufs, M.D., the study’s lead author and professor of clinical and experimental medicine at Saarland University, Germany. “This is direct evidence of anti - aging effect of physical exercise. It prevents the aging of cardiovascular system, reflecting this molecular principle.”
Essentially, the longer the telomere of athletes, the more efficient it is. In a clinical study, researchers compared 32 professional runners (average age 20) with middle aged athletes (average age 51). While the average running distance of the young professional athletes was a little over 45 miles per week, the average distance of middle-aged athletes was about 50 miles per week.
Then these two groups were evaluated against untrained athletes, who, though healthy non-smokers, didn’t exercise regularly. Their ages were matched with professional athletes. Long-term exercise and training activates telomerase and reduces telomere. The age-dependent telomere loss was lower in master athletes who performed endurance exercise for several decades.
“Our data underlines the potency of physical training in reducing the impact of age-related disease,” Laufs said. The report has been published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
For more information about how exercise is important for adults and seniors alike, click here.
