According to an article recently posted on Inverse, “as people age, they lose muscle mass and the risk of heart disease, dementia, and reduced immune function increases. As the years tick by, it becomes harder for people to bounce back from a workout, injury, or illness.”
What can be done to slow down or reverse these aging effects?
For years researchers have promoted exercise for “promoting health span and giving people extra disease-free years“ and ultimately “slowing down the degenerative process.” However, according to new research, experts have found that consistent aerobic exercise may not only slow down the effects of aging, but ultimately REVERSE the effects. How is this possible?
THE STUDY
A group of scientists put together a study focused on if “aerobic exercise can cause old cells to behave more like – and gain the characteristics of – young cells.” The results were incredible:
THE TEST
“To get there, the scientists rounded up young and old mice and gave them access to a running wheel for three weeks. Then, with a battery of tests, they analyzed how the mouse’s muscle stem cells and muscle tissue responded [after the exercise]. They compared the mouse runners to a group of non-exercising mice who were given a locked wheel and no opportunity to run. Within a single week, both young and old mice with the running wheels established a routine, running about 10 and 4.9 kilometers per night, respectively. The human equivalent to the mice running wheel regime would likely be regular, aerobic exercise— swimming, running, cycling, Rando says. Not strength training or weight lifting.
After three weeks of voluntary wheel running, the mice were moved to cages without any wheels. Then, the researchers injured certain muscles and analyzed how the mice rebuilt the injured tissue. They also transplanted muscle stem cells from old mice into other injured mice and saw how well the cells functioned. Compared with young donor muscle stem cells, old donor muscle stem cells formed smaller and fewer fibers in the injured mice. But old muscle stem cells from exercising mice performed like young muscle stem cells, forming more fibers than non-exe