Researchers from Brigham Young University in the US say they’ve found that a certain type of exercise can slow the ageing process within our cells, meaning we can enjoy better health and physical condition that matches the body of someone as much as nine years younger.
Longer telomeres equals longer life
The researchers at BYU, led by exercise science professor Larry Tucker, studied 5,823 adults who had participated in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research project called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. This study kept track of the participants’ daily physical activity, particularly to the extent in which these people engaged in 62 types of exercise over a 30-day period. But, significantly, the project also measured something called ‘telomere length values’. Telomeres are the nucleotide endcaps of our chromosomes and are directly linked with the ageing process. Each time a cell replicates, we lose a tiny bit of the endcaps on these telomeres. Therefore, the older we get, the shorter our telomeres become.
“We know that, in general, people with shorter telomeres die sooner and are more likely to develop many of our chronic diseases,” says lead researcher, Larry Tucker. “It’s not perfect, but it’s a very good index of biological ageing.”
By categorising physical activity into four segments viz. sedentary, low, moderate and high, the professor claims he was able to correlate relative telomere length with the various levels of physical activity. Interestingly, he found that people in the first three categories (sedentary, low and moderate) had roughly similar telomere lengths. But those who underwent high levels of physical exercise had on average 140 additional base pairs of DNA at the end of their telomeres than the other groups. This correlated to a biological age that was nine years younger than normally expected.
How much exercise do you need to grow younger?
The BYU researchers defined ‘high levels of physical activity’ as 30 minutes of jogging for women, or 40 minutes of jogging for men, done at least five times per week.
It’s not the first time this effect has been noted in a scientific study. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the US have reached a similar conclusion, finding that people who engage regularly in high-intensity interval training have cells that are more efficient at creating new proteins, which, in turn, could be effective in reversing ageing.
As for how physical exercise preserves telomere length, that wasn’t clear from the study, but the researchers believe it might be
linked to either oxidative stress or inflammation.
Explains Prof. Tucker, “Just because you’re 40, doesn’t mean you’re 40 years old biologically. We all know people that seem younger than their actual age. The more physically active we are, the less biological ageing takes place in our bodies.”