Resistance Training Can Make You Younger

Older adults who lift weights are biologically younger, according to recent research published in the Public Library of Science One.
The work by lead author Simon Melov of the California-based Buck Institute for Age Research and his colleagues, “Resistance exercise reverses aging in human skeletal muscle,” explored whether resistance training, like lifting weights, can reverse aging.
Such exercise can lead to a younger physiological age, the study found.
Researchers looked at genes and muscle strength of some healthy older and younger adult men and women. Some of those had muscle samples taken before and after a six-month resistance exercise-training program.
Resistance exercise training was performed twice weekly on non-consecutive days for 26 weeks in 14 older individuals. Participants stretched and did 3 sets of 10 repetitions for leg press, chest press, leg extension, leg flexion, shoulder press, lat pull-down seated row, calf raise, abdominal crunch, and back extension and 10 repetitions for arm flexion and arm extension.
Before exercise training, older adults were 59% weaker than younger adults, but after six months of training in older adults, strength improved significantly such that they were only 38% lower than young adults, the research found.
Eesearchers examined 596 genes. After exercise, the gene signatures reverted to younger levels for genes affected by age and exercise.
Human aging is associated with muscle atrophy, known as sarcopenia, weakness and functional impairment, Approximately 7 percent of adults over 70, and up to 20 percent over age 80 years have debilitating conditions as a result of atrophy. The estimated annual cost of sarcopenia-related health issues to the US health care system is more than $18 billion annually.
Resistance exercise can increase muscle strength, function and mass in older adults even in their 90s.
Melov et al.’s research also found that exercise reverses a functional decline in the elderly, that gene expression changes associated with aging are reversed to youthful levels after 6 months of exercise training and that exercise is more likely to affect “aging” genes than genes not associated with age.

Citation: Melov S, Tarnopolsky MA, Beckman K, et al. Resistance exercise reverses aging in human skeletal muscle. PLOS ONE 2007; 2(5):e465 [www.plosone.org].