It’s Official: Run Harder = Live Longer

Your trainer had always told you to “try harder to get better”

What she/he, probably, did not add is “…and to live longer”

Now the good scientists of the Brigham Young University are filling that gap by formally declaring thus:

“…you may be able to slow one type of aging — the kind that happens inside your cells. As long as you’re willing to sweat.”

The key findings of the study, lead by Exercise science professor Larry Tucker are as follow:

– Adults with high physical activity levels have telomeres with a biological aging advantage of nine years over those who are sedentary, and a seven-year advantage compared to those who are moderately active.

– To be considered highly active, women had to engage in at least 30 minutes of jogging per day (40 minutes for men), five days a week.

– There was no significant difference in telomere length between those with low/moderate physical activity and the sedentary people.

Telomeres are the nucleotide endcaps of our chromosomes. They’re like our biological clock and they’re extremely correlated with age; each time a cell replicates, we lose a tiny bit of the endcaps. Therefore, the older we get, the shorter our telomeres.

“If you want to see a real difference in slowing your biological aging, it appears that a little exercise won’t cut it,” Prof. Tucker adds “You have to work out regularly at high levels.”

source: https://news.byu.edu/news/research-finds-vigorous-exercise-associated-reduced-aging-cellular-level

We could only add: ” and if you were to replace 3 hours of jogging per week with 3 hours of active skiing, not only your telomeres would be vigorous and happy, but you joints too.