A new study was released over the last week showing what many older people already know, that training is a very important part of keeping you young.
The study says resistance exercise for people 65 and older can actually reverse important aging effects on skeletal muscles, to the point where they work genetically like those found in people four decades younger.
“We see big improvements … after training,” said Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, an associate professor at the McMaster University Medical Centre.
“Many people were reporting they could pick up their grandkids, they could carry more groceries, it was easier to go up the stairs,” said Tarnopolsky, an expert on muscle diseases and one of the paper’s two lead authors.
There are several reasons for this change and most of it is in the physical changes that take place in the mini powerplants of cells and this, says the good doctor promises to make things better for many people for years to come.
The study looked at DNA expression in the muscle cells of 25 healthy seniors, who had undergone twice-weekly resistance training for six months.
It concentrated in particular on the cellular mitochondria, the “powerhouses” that fuel activity in cells. They are typically depleted in older people, with many of the genes that affect them turned on or off by age. This depletion resulted in a loss of muscle mass and many of the mobility restrictions often found in seniors.