Ulrich Laufs, MD of Saarland University in Homburg, Germany and his colleagues report an association between long-term intense exercise and a reduction in the shortening of telomeres that occurs with aging. Telomeres are protective segments of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that shorten with cell division. Shorter telomeres limit the number of cell divisions, and have been linked with conditions associated with aging of the whole human organism, such as high blood pressure and dementia. Activation of an enzyme known as telomerase elongates telomeres.
The researchers assessed white blood cell telomere length in blood samples from 32 professional runners whose age averaged 20, middle-aged athletes of an average age of 51 who had engaged in continuous endurance exercise since youth, and young and old groups of healthy nonsmoking untrained athletes who did not engage in regular exercise.
Not surprisingly, the athletes in the study had slower resting heart rates, lower blood pressure, a lower body mass index, and improved lipids compared with those who did not exercise regularly. Age-dependent telomere loss was found to be lower in the middle aged athletes who had engaged in endurance exercise for several decades compared to the older, untrained men. "The most significant finding of this study is that physical exercise of the professional athletes leads to activation of the important enzyme telomerase and stabilizes the telomere," noted Dr Laufs, who is a professor of clinical and experimental medicine at Saarland University's department of internal medicine "This is direct evidence of an antiaging effect of physical exercise. Physical exercise could prevent the aging of the cardiovascular system, reflecting this molecular principle."
"Our data improves the molecular understanding of the protective effects of exercise on the vessel wall and underlines the potency of physical training in reducing the impact of age-related disease," he added.
No comments:
Post a Comment