Thirty Years Younger

Here’s still more evidence about the benefits of exercise. A study  in the Journal of Applied Physiology,  found that The muscles of older men and women who have exercised for decades are indistinguishable in  from those of healthy 25-year-olds…

These men and women also had much higher aerobic capacities than most people their age, the study showed, making them biologically about 30 years younger than their chronological ages.

Scientists have been working to establish to what extent  physical decline is inevitable with age and how much is a result of  modern lifestyles, which can be changed.

There have been hints that physical activity might alter how we age. Recent studies have found that older athletes have healthier muscles, brains, immune systems and hearts than people of the same age who are sedentary.

But many of these studies have concentrated on competitive masters athletes, and few have included many women.

This work looked at a set of men and women in their 70’s  who have exercised as a hobby since the 1970’s but rarely  competed. .

Together, these findings about muscular and cardiovascular health in active older people suggest that what we now consider to be normal physical deterioration with aging “may not be normal or inevitable.