A new study gives us ever more evidence that exercise may be the fountain of youth.
Research conducted on seniors in Canada shows that weight training can actually reverse aging in the muscle tissue of healthy senior citizens.
The study, co-led by Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky of McMaster University Medical Centre in Hamilton, Ont., took 25 healthy seniors over age 65 and put them on a weight lifting program of two hours a week for six months.
They then compared their tissue samples to a similar analysis taken from younger healthy men and women in their 20s who did the same exercises:
- Before exercise training, the older adults were 59 per cent weaker than the younger adults
- After the training the strength of the older adults improved by about 50 per cent, such that they were only 38 per cent weaker than the young adults.
"After training, they were halfway back to the strength of a young person," reports Tarnopolsky.
What's more, the genes and the cellular material damaged by aging were completely rejuvenated in the weight-lifting seniors. Exercise seemed to turn back the clock in mitochondria -- the tiny structures that allow cells to convert food into energy.
"What we found was significant. The genes that were abnormal with aging returned to the patterns of youth," Tarnopolsky says.
"The older muscle became very much like the younger adult muscle. It reversed some of the signs of aging."
The results of the study appear in the May 23 edition of the on-line, open access journal PLoS One.
Barbara and Norman Ford of Dundas, Ont. took part in the study and say they felt great at the end of it.
"It probably provided me with more stamina," says Norman Ford, 78. "It's just sort of something that sneaks up on you. You don't realize that you are feeling better until three or four months later."
"We were in a lot better shape," reports Barbara, who's 72.
Researchers think the weight training encourages the muscles to produce new healthy tissue, keeping it young.
It's just one more piece of evidence that exercise may be the key to improving the quality of life and health of seniors.
"There's enough evidence that this is something that should be highly recommended," says Prof. Russ Hepple of the University of Calgary's Exercise and Health Physiology department.
In a four-month follow-up after the study was complete, most of the older adults were no longer doing formal exercise in a gym, but most were doing resistance exercises at home, lifting soup cans or using elastic bands.
"They were still as strong, they still had the same muscle mass," said Tarnopolsky. "This shows that it's never too late to start exercising and that you don't have to spend your life pumping iron in a gym to reap benefits."
With a report from CTV medical specialist Avis Favaro and medical producer Elizabeth St. Philip
