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Fitness & Exercise for Senior Citizens
Run 30 Miles a Week, You Still Add Weight with
Aging, But Not As Much
Aging adds pounds with years, just less with
exercise; good cholesterol does go up
By Tucker Sutherland, editor
 May 4, 2007 The lead sentence on the news release
says, "People who maintain a vigorously active lifestyle as they age
gain less weight than people who exercise at more moderate levels."
Well, I'm not sure anyone needs a study to tell them this. But, it does
contain some depressing news about aging even if you run 30 miles a
week for seven years you are still going to gain weight. Gaining weight,
for the majority of us, is just going to happen. Adding years means
adding pounds.
The good news from this study, however, is that
those of you who do run 30 miles a week will gain two-tenths (.02) of a
pound less than the slackers who just run between 15 and 30 miles a
week. That should keep you pounding the asphalt.
But, it's even better for the 30-milers when
compared to the super slackers running less than 15 miles a week. These
guys, the sub-15-milers, gained 1.4 pounds a year over the seven year
study. The 30-milers-plus gained only .06 pounds per year and the
15-to-30-milers gained .08 pounds. These are the stats for men in the
study.
The women between the ages of 18 and 25 gained
about two pounds annually if they ran less than 15 miles per week, 1.4
pounds annually if they ran 15 to 30 miles per week, and slightly more
than three-quarters of a pound annually if they ran more than 30 miles
per week.
Well, these results are a little more motivating
for women the 30-milers lose more than half a pound a year more than
the 15-to-30-milers. Go for it, gals.
But there are more benefits to running more miles
each week included fewer inches gained around the waist in both men and
women, and fewer added inches to the hips in women.
|
Miles Run
Weekly |
-15 |
15-30 |
30+ |
|
Men 25 - 34 |
|
Annual Weight Gain (lbs.)
|
1.4 |
0.8 |
0.6 |
|
Women 18 25 |
|
Annual Weight Gain (lbs.)
|
2.0 |
1.4 |
.75+ |
This is all from a "first-of-its-kind" study that
tracked a large group of runners who kept the same exercise regimen as
they grew older.
As these runners aged, the benefits of exercise
were not in the changes they saw in their bodies, but how they didnt
change like the people around them, says researcher Paul Williams of
the U.S. Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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Running Hikes Good
Cholesterol for Senior Citizens and Youngsters |
|
| |
In an earlier study, Williams investigated if
older runners gained the same health benefits as younger
runners. Clinical trials in younger men demonstrate that running
decreases body weight, blood pressure, plasma low-density
lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and triglyceride concentrations
while increasing high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol.
Medical information and surveys were obtained for
935 sexagenarian (sixty to sixty-nine years old) and 175
septuagenarian (seventy years old and older) runners.
The graph above indicates how HDL-cholesterol
the "good cholesterol" - is linked to reported weekly distances
run by younger men (represented on the graph with the lighter
bars) and older men (represented by darker bars).
The height of the bar shows the average HDL-cholesterol
level of men in both age categories grouped by distance run
per week. The HDL-cholesterol concentrations increased
significantly in association with each 15-mile increment in
miles run per week. The graph indicates that HDL-cholesterol
concentrations increase in both the older and younger men for
comparable distances run weekly.
Body mass index (a measure of being overweight),
waist circumference, blood pressure, resting heart rate, plasma
triglyceride concentrations, and ratio of total cholesterol to
HDL-cholesterol were also lower in older runners who ran greater
distances in comparison to those who ran less (these results are
not shown).
For most heart disease risk factors, their
relations to distance ran were the same in older and younger
runners.
However, men sixty years and above showed
significantly smaller reductions in LDL-cholesterol per mile ran
(the so-called 'bad cholesterol') than their younger male
counterparts.
The different LDL responses to exercise may be
due to age related changes in the metabolism of LDL.
Source: Williams PT. Coronary heart disease risk
factors of vigorously active sexagenarians and septuagenarians.
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 1998 46: 134-142
Read more:
http://healthresearch.lbl.gov/senior.html |
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Frankly, looking .02 pounds thinner just isn't
enough motivation to get me to run 30 miles a week. Well, even if it
elevated my desire to do it, I doubt my body would cooperate.
Although growing older and gaining weight is
something of a package deal, it isnt the same in everyone. The lucky
few remain lean as they age, most people pack on several pounds, and
some people become obese. The latter group is particularly at risk for
high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
"Fortunately," says the news release, "Williams
results show that maintaining exercise can combat such extreme weight
gain."
Getting people to commit to a vigorously active
lifestyle while young and lean will go a long way to reducing the
obesity epidemic in this country, says Williams.
The study, conducted by Williams at the Berkeley
Lab, followed 6,119 men and 2,221 women who maintained their weekly
running mileage (to within three miles per week) over a seven-year
period. On average, the men and women who ran over 30 miles per week
gained half the weight of those who ran less than 15 miles per week.
To my knowledge, this is the only study of its
type, says Williams, a staff scientist in Berkeley Labs Life Sciences
Division. Other studies have tracked exercise over time, but the
majority of people will have changed their exercise habits
considerably.
The research is the latest report from the National
Runners' Health Study, a 20-year research initiative started by Williams
that includes more than 120,000 runners. It appears in the May 3 issue
of the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.
Previous study finds runners that quit gain
weight What, again?
Research by Williams has come up with other amazing
facts. A paper published in the November 2006 issue of the journal
Obesity by Williams and Paul Thompson of Hartford Hospital found that
runners who increased their running mileage gained less weight than
those who remained sedentary, and runners that quit running became
fatter.
The time to think about exercise is before you
think you need it, says Williams. The medical journals are full of
reports on how difficult it is to regain the slenderness of youth. The
trick is not to get fat.
Williams research was funded by the National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The May 3 paper in the journal Medicine
and Science in Sports and Exercise is entitled Maintaining Vigorous
Activity Attenuates 7-yr Weight Gain in 8,340 Runners.
Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy
national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts
unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of
California. Visit the Website at
www.lbl.gov.
Additional Information
More information on this and related research can
be found at
http://healthresearch.lbl.gov.
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