Age-defying Athletes: keep doing what you're doing...
...and you'll probably do it for a very long time...
Snippets from longevity research and the impact of sports on long life - and, especially, on long and healthy life
First, this most encouraging finding about exercise and its therapeutic advantages, from Nature.
From Discoveries in Ageing Research to Therapeutics for Healthy Ageing: Exercise improves Healthspan
Although much hope and investment are currently focused on drug development, it is important to note that exercise behaves as a true and effective geroprotector. In the absence of suitable treatments for age-related dysfunction, exercise is currently the only intervention that has shown a remarkable efficacy for reducing the incidence of age-related disease, improving the quality of life, and even increasing mean and maximum lifespan in humans. [emphasis added] Its benefits can be seen even with modest implementation. Although the key molecular players that mediate the protective effects of exercise against age-related disease are unknown, efforts are underway to identify the molecular players and whether we can harness such knowledge to improve the health of the ageing population.
And if that weren’t exciting enough, this JAMA excerpt may make you want to lace up your running shoes again…
August 11/25, 2008 JAMA Internal Medicine
Reduced Disability and Mortality Among Aging Runners: A 21-Year Longitudinal Study
This study demonstrates that participation in long-term running and other vigorous exercise among older adults is associated with less disability and lower mortality over 2 decades of follow-up. We prospectively followed a cohort of healthy adults from a mean age of 59 years in 1984 to 78 years in 2005. Not only were mean disability levels lower among runners at all time points, but the rate of disability progression strongly favored runners throughout the study.
…In addition to confirming an overall survival advantage and reduction in cardiovascular-related deaths among persons who participate in regular exercise, we also found a reduced rate of deaths from other causes including malignant neoplasms and neurologic disorders.
…This study follows our report of disability and mortality in this cohort after 13 years, showing significantly better outcomes for runners compared with controls. We had anticipated that, with an additional 8 years of observation encompassing an additional 132 deaths among participants (93 deaths were reported after 13 years), we would begin to see a convergence of disability and survival curves; however, this was not the case. Differences between runners and controls for all outcomes continued to diverge after 21 years of follow-up. [emphasis added]
WIIFY?
Live long and prosper. Keep golfing, playing tennis, walking, swimming, bicycling, running, sailing, rowing…whatever exercise you favor, do it. Do it regularly. Do it again and again. Do it and you’ll wake up at 100 years of age to once more do it.
Never doubt movement.