Benefits of Exercise

(This is adapted from a summary written in the ‘Wellness Letter” April 2010).

The following are a sampling of studies (all from the Archives of Internal Medicine), that show that physical activity may be the most effective prescription for promoting successful aging.

• Midlife exercise, including walking, increased the odds that women would have "exceptional health”-that is, no major chronic disease or physical/mental impairment-when they reached their seventies, according to a study of 13,535 nurses

• Weight training once or twice a week for a year improved cognitive skills as well as muscle strength in 106 women aged 65 to 75 from Vancouver. Previous research found such mental benefits primarily from aerobic exercise such as running.

• In a study of 3,900 Germans over 55, those who were physically active were far less likely to develop cognitive decline (ranging from memory to dementia) over a two-year period

• Adding an exercise and weight-control program enhanced the effectiveness of the blood-pressure-lowering DASH diet, in a four-month study at Duke University involved 144 overweight or obese people with hypertension or pre-hypertension.

Delving deeper into the potential anti-aging effects of exercise, another recent German study, this one in Circulation, suggested that vigorous exercise may partially reverse aging inside the cells, at the genetic level. In middle-aged long-time runners, there was less shortening of the telomeres (protective caps on the ends of DNA stands), compared to their sedentary counterparts. Such telomere shortening is a sign of aging in cells-sort of a biological clock. In fact, the telomeres of these runners appeared nearly as "young” as those of runners in their twenties. These were elite runners, but scientists speculate that any vigorous-maybe even moderate-exercise done over the long term may help keep the genes young.