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Staying Active

Exercise is Linked to Healthy Aging

If you’re comfortably settled into a couch potato lifestyle, here’s news that should get you moving again. A growing body of research is proving that regular aerobic and strength training exercise can help you stay healthier — and live better — well into your golden years.

“Research shows that the two primary types of exercise — aerobic and strength training — are important in helping people maintain their ability to perform a variety of routine activities as they age, such as climbing stairs or carrying groceries,” explains Gary Hunter, Ph.D., researcher and professor of education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Aerobic exercise is associated with improved endurance, or the ability to sustain work for a given period of time. Resistance training improves a person’s ability to exert high forces — or weight — against large muscles (think about the strength needed to lift a bag of groceries or stand up from a seated position).

Benefits of Aerobic Exercise

“People who participate in aerobic — or endurance-building — exercise such as walking for 20 minutes three to four times a week are more likely to engage in independent activities in daily living like climbing stairs, gardening, or walking up hills,” says Dr. Hunter. “The problem is that as people age, they tend to gradually decrease their physical activity levels. For some people, this process begins as early as their 40s.” Dr. Hunter stresses that a decrease in a person’s activity level as he or she ages can lead to harmful health consequences such as:

  • Insulin resistance, which precedes Type 2 — or adult onset — diabetes;
  • An increase in obesity;
  • An increase in cardiovascular disease;
  • Higher triglycerides (potentially harmful blood fats);
  • Lower levels of HDL (the “good” cholesterol).

“We also have a growing body of evidence to indicate that aerobic fitness decreases your risk of cancer,” says Dr. Hunter. “There seem to be two main reasons for this. First, aerobic exercise reduces markers of inflammation in the body, which are associated with cancer. Secondly, substances called cytokines – secreted by fat cells – have also been shown to contribute to cancer formation. Since aerobic exercise keeps you leaner, there are fewer fat cells in the body to secret the harmful cytokines.”

Advantages of Resistance Training

“Resistance training shares some of the same benefits of aerobic exercise, though it holds a few unique advantages,” explains Dr. Hunter. “A primary benefit is that it slows down the loss of muscle that naturally occurs as we age — though it can’t stop it entirely.” Helping the body maintain muscle has an independent effect on insulin sensitivity, decreasing a person’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Because strength training helps to maintain and increase muscle, it can also help us fight the battle of the bulge as we get older by reducing our overall percentage of body fat. “As we age, we begin to lose muscle and gain fat, even if we maintain the same body weight,” Dr. Hunter explains. “For example, the average woman at age 25 might have a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 25 (and approximately 25% body fat). But that same woman at age 65 — even assuming she has maintained the exact same body weight — might still have a BMI of 25, though her percentage of body fat might increase to 40 % or more due to muscle loss that occurs with aging.”

And there’s an important health advantage to slowing muscle loss and reducing the amount of fat we gain as we get older. “We know that as we age, we tend to shift fat from our periphery to our abdomen. Recent research has shown that visceral fat, which is deep in the abdomen, is very harmful to the body. But resistance training can help to reduce the tendency to gain fat in the abdomen as we age,” adds Dr. Hunter.

What’s more, recent research conducted at UAB shows that strength training can literally turn back the clock, restoring function to the level of someone thirty years younger. “As part of our study, we placed a group of 67-year-old women on a 16-week and 26-week strength training program,” explains Dr. Hunter. “After 16 weeks of training, we found that the program had reduced the difficulty of many routine activities, such as standing from a chair and carrying groceries. More significantly, the fitness levels of the study participants in performing these activities were comparable to 30-year-old women who had not been through a resistance training program. This means that — from an aging standpoint — the resistance training took 30 years off the training participants.”

Need yet another reason to put on your exercise clothes? Both aerobic and strength training have been shown to decrease depression, which can be a problem for older adults. “Some research has identified endorphins — or ‘feel-good’ chemicals — released in the brain during exercise. Also, many people get a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment from engaging in physical activity,” Dr. Hunter observes.

“We’re currently doing a study to determine the optimal frequency of aerobic and strength training exercise,” adds Dr. Hunter. “But generally, for aerobic exercise, the current recommendation is 20 to 40 minutes three or four times a week. And for resistance training, you should aim for a session at least two to three times per week.”

Article last updated: May 15, 2008 2:56 PM