Can Exercise Slow Your Aging?!

Exercise can slow your aging…that’s a very big claim but it turns out there is evidence coming out of Brigham Young University to back it up!

To begin, we must understand what a telomere is. We can think of our DNA sequence as a shoelace. DNA is made of two shoes laces, they are paired strands of DNA. At the ends of the DNA strands there is an end cap called a telomere. Just like shoelaces have protective tips, so does DNA. When the cells divide, the DNA gets replicated. Every time a cell divides, the telomere ends get a little shorter. Therefore, as we age our cells have divided many times resulting in the shortening of length of the telomeres. Eventually, we run out of telomere and the cell can no longer divide and becomes inactive, declines in function, or dies.

So, now we understand that telomere length is important and as we age it shrinks. However, the most astonishing thing we are finding out is that your physical activity level directly correlates to how long your telomeres are!

According to exercise science professor Larry Tucker at Brigham Young University, those individuals who exercised at a high intensity at least five days out of the week (30 min per session for women and 40 minutes for men) had telomeres that suggested they were nine years younger than those the same age but with sedentary lifestyles!

“Just because you’re 40, doesn’t mean you’re 40 years old biologically,” Tucker said. “We all know people that seem younger than their actual age. The more physically active we are, the less biological aging takes place in our bodies.”

High intensity interval training needed to get these results is at a level that is very demanding on the body. I would recommend that anyone who has not consistently trained at high intensity levels recently get guidance and supervision from a personal trainer in order to increase to the conditioning levels needed for high intensity training and avoid injury.