How does exercise have anti-aging benefits?

A new study published in the journal of the American Heart Association Circulation has found that long term exercise fights the aging process through its effects on chromosomes. Intensive exercise helps prevent shortening of telomeres. The researchers measured the length of telomeres in blood samples from two groups of professional athletes-professional runners with an average age of 20 and middle-aged athletes with a history of continuous endurance exercise since their youth whose average age was 51.

The exercisers were matched by age to two groups who were healthy nonsmokers, but not regular exercisers.”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” according to lead author Dr.Ulrich Laufs of Saarland University in Homburg, Germany.

Physical exercise improves cardiovascular health and helps prevent cancer. Apart from fighting infections White blood cells have another major role which is seek out abnormal cell growths and clear them away. One reason why cancer increases with age could be that WBC themselves age and become less efficient at dealing with the abnormal growths.

If exercise maintains the youthfulness of WBC by preventing the shortening of their telomeres, it can explain why exercise can protect against cancer. Likewise with heart disease, aging WBC (along with high blood pressure and other factors) may allow plaque to accumulate more quickly. By keeping WBC young, exercise may enable them to continue to effectively clear away plaque.

In another study conducted in2008 by Dr. Ornish of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Sausalito, California and colleagues at the university of California Sanfrancisco,conducted a study of 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer, on the possible effects of lifestyle changes in telomers.The men were asked to make several social, dietary and exercise-related lifestyle changes.

Telomerase levels were measured at the baseline, and again after three months, when researchers discovered that, in 24 participants telomerase in the blood had increased by 29 percent. The authors commented that” The implications of this study are not limited to men with prostate cancer.

Comprehensive lifestyle changes may cause improvements in telomerase and telomeres that may be beneficial to the general population as well”.

The future prospects of Telomere research may someday aid in developing a longevity pill that will help fight aging and aging related disease and extent life span significantly or perhaps a drug or vaccine that will cure cancer.

What are Telomeres?
The long thread-like DNA molecules that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes. A telomere is a region of repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome which protects the chromosome ends from destruction. In short, they serve as protective caps that prevent chromosomes from fusing with each other or rearranging that would scramble an organisms genetic information and cause cancer, other diseases or death . Telomeres are often compared to aglets (tips) on the ends of shoelaces that keep them from fraying.

SOURCE: biomedme