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Fitness & Exercise for Senior Citizens
Being Physically Active in Leisure Time Leads to
Being Biologically Younger
Or, sedentary lifestyles leads to accelerated aging
process
 Jan. 29, 2008 - Individuals who are physically
active during their leisure time appear to be biologically younger than
those with sedentary lifestyles, according to a report in the January 28
issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives
journals.
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It has been established that regular exercisers
have lower rates of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer,
high blood pressure, obesity and osteoporosis.
A sedentary lifestyle increases the propensity to
aging-related disease and premature death, the authors write.
Inactivity may diminish life expectancy not only by predisposing to
aging-related diseases but also because it may influence the aging
process itself.
Lynn F. Cherkas, Ph.D., of Kings College London,
and colleagues studied 2,401 white twins, administering questionnaires
on physical activity level, smoking habits and socioeconomic status.
The participants also provided a blood sample from
which DNA was extracted. The researchers examined the length of
telomeres - repeated sequences at the end of chromosomes - in the twins
white blood cells (leukocytes). Leukocyte telomeres progressively
shorten over time and may serve as a marker of biological age.
Telomere length decreased with age, with an average
loss of 21 nucleotides (structural units) per year.
Men and women who were less physically active in
their leisure time had shorter leukocyte telomeres than those who were
more active.
Such a relationship between leukocyte telomere
length and physical activity level remained significant after adjustment
for body mass index, smoking, socioeconomic status and physical activity
at work, the authors write.
The mean difference in leukocyte telomere length
between the most active (who performed an average of 199 minutes of
physical activity per week) and least active (16 minutes of physical
activity per week) subjects was 200 nucleotides, which means that the
most active subjects had telomeres the same length as sedentary
individuals up to 10 years younger, on average.
A sub-analysis comparing pairs in which twins had
different levels of physical activity showed similar results.
Oxidative stress - damage caused to cells by
exposure to oxygen - and inflammation are likely mechanisms by which
sedentary lifestyles shorten telomeres, the authors suggest. In
addition, perceived stress levels have been linked to telomere length.
Physical activity may reduce psychological stress, thus mitigating its
effect on telomeres and the aging process.
The U.S. guidelines recommend that 30 minutes of
moderate-intensity physical activity at least five days a week can have
significant health benefits, the authors write.
Our results underscore the vital importance of
these guidelines. They show that adults who partake in regular physical
activity are biologically younger than sedentary individuals. This
conclusion provides a powerful message that could be used by clinicians
to promote the potential anti-aging effect of regular exercise.
Editor's Note: This study was supported in part by
a grant from the Welcome Trust, grants from the National Institutes of
Health and a grant from The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.
Editorial: More research needed to verify
exercise - aging link
Additional work needs to be done to show a direct
relationship between aging and physical activity, writes Jack M.
Guralnik, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Institute on Aging, Bethesda,
Md., in an accompanying editorial.
Persons who exercise are different from sedentary
persons in many ways, and although certain variables were adjusted for
in this analysis, many additional factors could be responsible for the
biological differences between active and sedentary persons, a situation
referred to by epidemiologists as residual confounding, Dr. Guralnik
writes.
Nevertheless, this article serves as one of many
pieces of evidence that telomere length might be targeted in studying
aging outcomes.
Editor's Note: This study was supported by the
Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Aging, National
Institutes of Health.
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