9 ms·

Does exercise slow the aging process?

107 points by tmbsundar 11y ago

csvan 11y ago
"Sitting is the new smoking"
- abhi152 11y ago
  very true.
  - djhn 11y ago
    Except that it isn't. It would take a lot of obviously sitting-related deaths for it to warrant comparison to smaking. Stress may be the new smoking, but sitting is definitely not.
jacquesm 11y ago
I don't know if it will actually slow down aging (which is a very wide concept). But I do have a 'proof of 1' that cycling a lot will wear out your knees and hips prematurely. Bodies are like machines, if you use them a lot they will wear out because of over-use. If you use them very little they will atrophy. The balance is probably somewhere in the middle, yes, exercise but don't overdo it.
- ChrisLTD 11y ago
  "Bodies are like machines, if you use them a lot they will wear out because of over-use." One crucial difference between humans and machines is that humans regenerate and can grow stronger through careful exertion.
  - geoka9 11y ago
    Not so with the joints. That's why you see so many great athletes end their careers prematurely due to knee and back injuries.
    - matwood 11y ago
      I think we need to be careful comparing regular people with 'great athletes'. The stresses a top athlete puts on their body are extreme because they are top athletes. With that said, many (most?) top athletes go their entire careers without a joint problem at all.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - npsimons 11y ago
      Which is exactly why ChrisLTD said "careful exertion". Also, extrapolating a tiny percentage (permanently injured professional athletes) of a tiny percentage (professional athletes) to the general populace is facetious. Your average person is nowhere near "too much physical exertion", albeit they may have bad form, but that can be cleared up by competent coaching (even self-coaching).
      - geoka9 11y ago
        What I'm trying to say is that while it's possible to cure almost any muscle-related injury with exercise and regimen (and the athletes do this all the time), it's not possible to do with a busted joint (and the athletes have to retire prematurely when they realize that having another surgery is not an option).
    - gozur88 11y ago
      Sure, but you're talking about people who exercise five or six hours a day. People with jobs and families couldn't do that if they wanted to.
      - brianwawok 11y ago
        I know a few ironmen that would be great to differ :)
        11y ago
  - nickff 11y ago
    Only some 'components' regenerate, so you've got to be careful. Ligaments and spinal discs are non-'repairable' components.
    - matwood 11y ago
      While not body repairable, I have had my ACL replaced so it is fixable. For those non-repairable components what you want to do is build up the muscle around them. People are so scared about hurting their backs that they avoid doing any exercises to make the muscles that stabilize the lower back stronger. I routinely have people tell me at the gym they do not dead lift because they do not want to hurt their backs. The problem is a) learning to DL will teach you how to lift properly and b) it will strengthen the muscles in your back. For the record I tore my ACL doing inverts on the wakeboard. Not exactly typical exercising.
      - iofj 11y ago
        Keep in mind that those repair components are eukaryot cells, and they have two built in rules that are important here :\ 1) any individual cell, once X energy passes through them, they senescence 2) from the ovum you grew out of until the last cell alive when you die, only 128 cell divisions happen in that line. That means there is a finite supply of these repair components, these cells, and so there is a limit to how much energy can go through your body before you die. Therefore, you probably want to make sure "peak" effort in any reasonable time interval (e.g. a month, maybe a week) is pretty high, to encourage the machinery to remain well-maintained, but average effort is as low as possible. You should exercise to have a huge amount of effort for maybe 10-15 minutes per month, sprinting for instance, getting your heartrate up to 130+, and keeping it up for a short while, maybe 20-30 minutes, no more. Other than that, you should probably avoid exercise and eat healthy. There are other reasons gym is not a particularly good kind of exercise. It's just not very realistic. Running or biking in the real world, aside from being more fun than in a gym, is also a lot better for you. And probably, having a weekly game of basketball is far better than that.
    - shawnb576 11y ago
      Not true. I've had ligament damage that recovered. I've got two herniated discs that no longer give me much trouble (and I'm very active). No surgery, but careful management and activity choice.
- vox_mollis 11y ago
  But I do have a 'proof of 1' that cycling a lot will wear out your knees and hips prematurely. Interesting. I have a single anecdata point that short-duration heavy lifting cures the degenerative effects of putting miles on one's knees and hips.
  - usaphp 11y ago
    Hi, can you tell me more about your experience?
    - vox_mollis 11y ago
      Sure. Took up incline walking/running over a decade ago to mitigate a moderate case of programmer's ass. The habit stuck, but over time, my knees (right knee in particular) really began to ache and swell badly. Overall energy began declining also, but that's beyond the scope of this context. At the suggestion of some local "gym bros", I swapped out carbohydrates for fats and switched half of the endurance exercise for resistance exercise. At first it hurt, but over the course of a couple months, my knee issues disappeared completely. But again, single anecdata point.
      - Kluny 11y ago
        I'll add a second. I road biked, mountain biked, and played polo, but had knee, hip, and shoulder pain all the time. Since doing resistance training, I've only got muscle pain. Still hurts, but it goes away sooner and it isn't anywhere near as annoying as joint pain.
        npsimons 11y ago
        I'll add a third - hiked and rock climbed for years, always had some pain afterwards, even at lower body weights. Started lifting, now I hardly ever get sore after hiking and climbing, and if I do, it doesn't last long. If it does, it's a sign I'm probably coming down with something. Which also happens much less often since I started lifting. BTW, started lifting based on a book suggested on an HN thread years ago: "Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training" by Mark Rippetoe.
- StriverGuy 11y ago
  This is very misguided advice. Long bouts of endurance exercise can be very taxing and destructive to many body parts. Exercise as a whole can be done efficiently and effectively without wearing your body out. Anaerobic exercise (lifting weights) can improve collagen and muscle production via several hormonal pathways. These same pathways tend to have negative feedbacks from excess aerobic exercise (i.e. high cortisol, low GH output in distance athletes).
  - xiaoma 11y ago
    The data for extreme endurance athletes such as marathoners is mixed. It's very possible that racing at long distances is a risk factor. The data on intense weight-lifting on the other hand is much more conclusive. Heart enargement, aortic dissection and a host of other heart related risks are sharply higher for extreme weightlifters. Lifting a couple of days a week and doing cardio 3-4 days a week and not going completely nuts with either is probably the safest. But sometimes it's fun to go nuts and shoot for a goal. In the big scheme of things, there are a lot worse hobbies to have.
    - npsimons 11y ago
      > for extreme weightlifters. Again with the extremes; people don't get "big" on accident, and moderate strength training provides a whole host of benefits without the dangers. More people should be lifting, with proper form and modest goals.
    - soperj 11y ago
      Yeah, "Extreme Weightlifting" doesn't necessarily mean you need to get big. When I was training for hockey when I was younger, at 18 I could bench 285, and easily leg press 990 pounds (that was the max the leg press machine could handle - 10 45's on each side and 2 on top, so I'd do sets of 20). The max I weighted that summer was 182 pounds(82.5 kg).
      - xiaoma 11y ago
        For sure. These days people in the 160s range are breaking 400. It's not something advisable from any sort of health perspective, but it is awesome and it's not that risky. http://www.criticalbench.com/Claude-Bouyer.htm http://www.criticalbench.com/Claude-Bouyer.htm
- matwood 11y ago
  What counts as 'a lot'? Is the cyclist doing any other exercising or just cycling? Did they have proper form? Were they predisposed genetically to poor knees or hips? Did they have proper rest between sessions? Were they ignoring over training warning signs? I'm asking these questions because I have been seeing more and more comments along the lines of exercising wears the body out and it breaks, so do not exercise. Exercising with proper form and rest should not do this. In fact the body should be getting stronger. One of the big things I see, particularly with runners and cyclists is very little thought to proper form. Running and cycling appear easy so I think people often do not think about form or technique.
  - npsimons 11y ago
    There's also the factor of different types of exercise. Resistance training (again, with proper form) has done wonders for me (and before I trot out anecdata, I'll preface that resistance training has been prescribed for skeletal issues in the elderly for a while now). Things that used to hurt after "totally unrelated" exercise (hiking, climbing, etc), now no longer hurt. And I had been doing these activities for years - it wasn't until I started resistance training that the pain went away.
    - matwood 11y ago
      Exactly. Cycling in particular puts a person in a fixed awkward position for long periods of time (not much different than sitting at a desk for long periods of time). Cyclists must pay special attention to work the other muscles that do not get worked while cycling or they risk creating imbalances which leads to pain and injury.
- e40 11y ago
  Another anecdote: walking 4-5 miles a day for 20 years and my feet are a wreck. I finally found shoes (MBTs) that allowed me to continue walking. About 5 years ago I was afraid I'd have to stop. My knees are actually better, though. I've had 3 operations on my left knee and if I don't walk it gets very arthritic. With walking, it's fine.
  - usaphp 11y ago
    Do you have a flat feet or some other condition with legs or knee positions? People with misaligned knees or flat foot tend to develop more problems from walking/running due to improper form because of that misalignment.
  - matwood 11y ago
    So you walked pain free for 20 years and woke up one day and your feet were a wreck?
- riggins 11y ago
  Bodies are like machines, if you use them a lot they will wear out because of over-use. This is a poor analogy. Bodies can heal (i.e. regenerate tissue). Machines cannot. If this analogy was true, ultra-marathoners would be wearing out their joints rapidly. That's not what is being observed though. What is true is that you can injure joints by increasing the workload too fast. Joints can strengthen and adapt to increased loads but it happens slowly. So don't go from running 5 miles per outing to running 10 miles. Limit yourself to a gradual increase. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083867 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948208,00.html http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948208,0...
  - Udo 11y ago
    There is no question that bodies are in fact machines, there are parts that regenerate and parts that don't. Many extreme sport enthusiasts carry life-long consequences of parts they broke during their activities. The issue here is more if the oxidative stress put on your components is offset or even completely overshadowed by the biochemical benefits of exercise, and there is indeed reason to believe that a moderate exercise regime - not unsurprisingly - may yield optimal results. Exercise too little and your body's machinery will start to suffer from use-it-or-lose-it symptoms. Exercise too much and you will cause an inordinate amount of mechanical wear that cannot be regenerated, plus there may be some biochemical stresses as well. I know "do it in moderation" makes for a shitty headline that interests nobody, but all things being equal that should probably be the take-away here. I agree with you about gradual increase being advisable, but perpetually aiming for your physical limits may not be the most appropriate course of action for individuals who are already fit.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - bootload 11y ago
    "What is true is that you can injure joints by increasing the workload too fast. Joints can strengthen and adapt to increased loads but it happens slowly. So don't go from running 5 miles per outing to running 10 miles." Underrated point. This is especially noticeable carrying packs. If you don't train to improve your joint strength (tendons and surrounding tissue, not muscle) you will injure yourself. Slowly you can build up to heavier weights. I now regularly train with 10kg, occasionally 15kg and alternate with 1kg. 2000km this year.
- seivan 11y ago
  Running to. Will really wear you out.
- codingdave 11y ago
  A few years back, when my knees started to crackle when biking, I switched from a more standard frame geometry on my bike to one where the pedals were kicked forward about 6 inches, with the seat a bit lower, and handlebars a bit higher. It cleared all the knee and hip problems up practically instantly. I suspect the long-term problems with biking are more because bike designs often maximize performance over long-term joint health.
  - xur17 11y ago
    I'd love to hear more about this - any chance you have an example bike?
    - codingdave 11y ago
      Sure, just google crank-forward bikes, and there are dozens of them on the market now.Many of them trend towards hipster/cruiser, which is not my personal style, but there are many choices. The one I have is one of these -- http://www.electrabike.com/bikes/townie/original-3i-3i-eq?g=mens http://www.electrabike.com/bikes/townie/original-3i-3i-eq?g=...
  - justinator 11y ago
    > I suspect the long-term problems with biking are more > because bike designs often maximize performance over > long-term joint health. Eh, yes and no. The modern road bike geometry looks the way it does because of the rules in the governing body (the UCI). Up until very recently, they were more interested in keeping tradition, then technological improvements. Think of a bike geometry and design much like an F1 class of race cars. A faster bike on the road would be a recumbent, and by quite a bit, as recumbents are much more aerodynamic. An added benefit to some is any saddle issues could go away, as there's no saddle, just a seat. I could also see that the aggressive posture needed to maximize aerodynamics on a regular road bike in an attempt to squeeze out the maximum amount of aerodynamic advantage on a platform that's really not all about that could cause problems in some people, and relaxing this would be more comfortable, without a doubt - exactly like you have observed. You do need an amount of strength and flexibility to stay in those aerodynamic postures. I've had minor knee issues with riding bikes (and I ride a lot of them!) I was fearing the worse - overuse sounded plausible. Rather, it was simply a muscle imbalance from riding so much, which was pulling me knee in funny ways. PT, stretching, and specific exercises - as well as getting fit for my bike correctly, I've cleared that up, and since have ridden thousands and thousands of miles.
- gist 11y ago
  "that cycling a lot will wear out your knees and hips prematurely." Can you define what you mean by "a lot" in both number of years and typical time spent? Typical routine?
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Younger years: 100's of km/day easy on old fashioned race bikes, later on anything from recumbents to hand built bikes specifically for my size. All in all I wore out about 6 bikes over the years while maintaining them very well in the intermediate. I quit riding hard at 27, but I've never been without a bike and I'm still quite fast just don't have the endurance any more. If I do more than 100 km (a bit more than 3 hours riding) I will know about it the next day. Not in a debilitating way, just a strong reminder to not overdo it. My current regular bike is a bike my son built for me that is best described as a trek bike with some oddities and my current recumbent is a zephyr. I don't ride the zephyr a lot because it is very dangerous in traffic to be that low and fast. And then there is the 'daddy bike', an upright with two child seats, fully loaded (bike, two toddlers, me) > 120 kg. It takes a while to get that up to speed but once it moves it is quite easy to ride.
- OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
  Chronic cardio or other long session exercise is bad for the body, recent science is coming firmly down on the side of short sharp exercise instead like Tabata sprints etc.
  - markeroon 11y ago
    Citation plz (no paleo blogs.)
    - OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
      Cardiac Arrhythmias =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/118/8/800.abstract?ijkey=4084342f01af053002c99bb07699d54e9b3d6fc5&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/118/8/800.abstract?ijkey... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19633305 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19633305 Atherosclerosis =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21200345 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21200345 http://www.healio.com/cardiology/chd-prevention/news/online/%7Bcdd889ca-bfa9-4ca7-9c95-25ad09d999ee%7D/endurance-runners-at-risk-for-calcified-coronary-plaque http://www.healio.com/cardiology/chd-prevention/news/online/... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18426850 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18426850 Oxidative Stress =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16941810 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16941810
- OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
  Chronic cardio or other long session exercise is bad for the body, recent science is coming firmly down on the side of short sharp exercise instead like Tabata sprints etc and very light but longer term as in gently walking an hour a day etc. It's common sense really.
- doe88 11y ago
  > cycling a lot will wear out your knees and hips prematurely. I've observed having an higher cadence seems to impact less my knees and my back, I've no hard evidence though, it is just modifications I made along the years on my training.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    That makes good sense.
  - brianwawok 11y ago
    Power when biking is measured in watts. You can pedal at 40 rpm or 90 and put out the same watts. 90 is clearly going to be less maximal force.
- brianwawok 11y ago
  Did you get professional bike fits from well respected fitters? Not an accusation but as a biker something I care about. So far since I have been well fit with a bike I have seen no symptoms of anything bad, and my quality of life is through the roof.(run and swim too but tangential I suppose, though runners hear a lot about knees wearing out which has generally been proven false). Or the other option is maybe your hip was doomed if you biked or not... not sure how to totally tease that out with out identical twins studies..
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    The hip is something that I would have probably ended up with anyway. The knees from using way too heavy gears when I was still in my teens. Delayed action.
- shawnb576 11y ago
  Yeah, maybe your N=1 causation hypothesis isn't all that well reasoned. This concept is absolutely false. With a proper setup, you should be able to ride all you want without anything "wearing out". Bodies don't "wear out", in fact they respond well when stress is applied correctly. It gets harder as you age, but that's an orthogonal issue. Injury and recovery is part of being active. I've done 10 Ironmans and seen many, many people in their 40s, 50s, 60s happily cranking out miles and ending up looking younger than when they started. What wears bodies out is not using them.
jasode 11y ago
And to add to the confusion, you have another study considering the opposite conclusion. The study explored the effects of exercise increasing free radicals and advanced aging. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9177582 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9177582
- outlace 11y ago
  This study sort of makes an assumption that increased free radicals causes (at least in part) aging (free radical theory of aging). The relationship between radical oxygen species (free radicals) and aging is not at all clear to my understanding. (this paper is from 1997) Moreover, it's possible that the tissues most susceptible to oxidative stress during exercise (i.e. muscle) are also most adapted to handle it. So overall, yes ROS increase but mostly just in muscle where it is well-adapted to handle it, and the benefits of exercise (lowering blood pressure, better circulation, etc) trump any detriments of increased ROS. Edit: Found this review [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23434764 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23434764 ] that considers evidence that ROS may actually be a part of a pro-survival signal cascade
- mikkom 11y ago
  This also very related and just released. This was published in quite many local (finnish) newspapers as this is a joint project of Jyväskylä (finnish) and Michican universities. http://www.nature.com/articles/srep18259 http://www.nature.com/articles/srep18259
amelius 11y ago
Perhaps cardio training. But bodybuilding will probably not slow down aging; I suppose it wears one down physically, and also imposes a huge load on the central nervous system. It would be nice to have a scientific study on this, to see to what extent this is true.
furfish 11y ago
According to the law of headlines the answer is "no".
calebm 11y ago
My wife and I are reading this book called "Move Your DNA" (by Katy Bowman). She has an interesting thesis: modern exercise is "junk movement" (like "junk" food). The idea is that humans were meant to move more throughout the day, and that trying to cram all of our needed movement into a small 45-minute block is similar to how junk food crams tons of calories into a small bit of food. We're not finished with it yet, but initially, I find it interesting.
- tertius 11y ago
  > The idea is that humans were meant to move more throughout the day I don't know if you can necessarily compare this to tons of calories (think fat from an animal) into a bit of food. Now the source of the calories yes.
- dghughes 11y ago
  Then you have studies showing High Intensity Training (HIT) where you only exercise three minutes per week is beneficial. But it may depend on your genes. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17177251 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17177251 >The idea is that humans were meant to move more throughout the day My parents are always on the go gardening, going to auctions, walking a bit, always doing something. Dad eats a lot but eats everything fish, shellfish, many kinds of meat, all kinds of vegetables he gets a huge variety of food. I'm sitting watching my computer screen not moving, I eat a limited diet and I think I will be worse off than my parents. And I think Millennials will be even worse I've never seen so many fat people at such a young age, at least bottom out at mid 40s and not mid teens.
- djhn 11y ago
  Along the same lines (speculatory evolutionary biology?) is the observation that in training for endurance sports such as running, cycling, skiing and rowing we best respond to either long, slow distance training at very low intensities (like in persistance hunting) or high-intensity sprints/bouts (like combat) because those were the main "athletic" stimuli for our ancestors. http://www.sportsci.org/2009/sai.htm http://www.sportsci.org/2009/sai.htm
reasonattlm 11y ago
The most interesting result from recent research into exercise is this: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=159410&CultureCode=en http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=159410&Cult... http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep18259 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep18259 An open access paper on exercise in identical and non-identical twin pairs was recently published, the data suggesting that long-term differences in physical activity between identical twins don't result in any significant difference in longevity, even though other differences in health outcomes are observed. We might draw parallels between this and similar results observed in a mouse study from a few years back, in which the exercising mice had better health but no increase in maximum life span. The researchers here theorize that the well-known epidemiological association between exercise and increased life expectancy is perhaps as much a matter of genetics as of choice. For any observed statistical relationship in humans there are always questions of causation. This is especially true in the web of associations related to aging and mortality in population data, in which life expectancy, wealth, social status, intelligence, education, exercise, diet, and culture all have ties to one another. That we pay great attention to these relationships is a function of having no good way to treat aging, I've long thought: we care about trivial differences in life expectancy of a few years here and a few years there because this is all that is in our power to change right now, and that will continue until the development of rejuvenation therapies. Life expectancy and exercise are linked robustly in many data sets, and even more so now that accelerometers are so cheap and ubiquitous that even large studies can use them to obtain actual rather than self-reported data on physical activity. There are studies to demonstrate longer life expectancy in athletes, longer life expectancy in those who exercise modestly versus those who are sedentary, and so forth. What are these studies measuring, however? For example, what if people who are more robust and would live longer regardless of exercise tend to exercise more? Or perhaps exercise levels are a good proxy for lower levels of visceral fat tissue and consequent chronic inflammation - themselves linked to greater risk of age-related disease and mortality. The results of this study definitely muddy the waters in the search for causation and mechanism in exercise and mortality reduction, providing evidence to support a state of considerable complexity in the relationship between exercise, genetics, and outcomes in health. Nothing in biology is ever as simple as we'd like it to be, so this should perhaps be expected. Regardless he data presented below should be added to the many past studies on exercise and mortality, and its weight balanced accordingly - never take any single set of data and interpretations as gospel in science. This doesn't change the consensus, which is that you should exercise, and that you are expected to obtain benefits by doing so. It does add subtlety to the picture, however.
nikolay 11y ago
Aerobic exercise actually speeds it up due to increased oxidation in the system, but, in general, any BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) increase also speeds up your demise, but this is in the ideal situation where we all die naturally, not from chronic disease, cancer, etc. Why? Because our cells can't divide indefinitely (Hayflick limit [0]). Any activity that increases growth factors also can speed up cancerous growth. So, don't run, don't exercise - just walk, do gardening work, and other normal human activities. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayflick_limit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayflick_limit
- nikolay 11y ago
  All gym-goers and runners gang up and downvote me... but this won't change what I said. Read up, educate yourself, research other species, and you'll find the truth. And let me be even more direct: you're endorphins junkies!
  - 88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago
    People aren't downvoting you because they disagree with you, they are downvoting you because your comment was poorly written and unconvincing.
    - nikolay 11y ago
      It's still better than not bothering to take a stance, right? Time is limited, I work at the moment, past deadlines, etc. Often if you reply too late, nobody notices. I don't comment for vanity reasons, but for that one person that can appreciate my effort.
      - 88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago
        > It's still better than not bothering to take a stance, right? No. It just makes the comments less valuable. I come to this site because of the diversity of insight and high quality of posts. No one is tallying the stances and declaring a "winner". 100,000 anti-vaxxer posts aren't going to make me an anti-vaxxer. One post that goes into the details of the molecular mechanisms that show how the chemicals in vaccines cause autism might (not that I expect it to happen, since it's baloney, but I hope you take my point).
KerrickStaley 11y ago
This is an observational study and proves correlation, not causation. People whose bodies age slowly for whatever reason are more likely to be athletic, especially in the 40-65 age range they called out.
5555624 11y ago
Previous comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10468025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10468025
jasonmp85 11y ago
I think the operative question is does it slow down aging at a rate faster than the time you spend exercising?
- tajen 11y ago
  A precedent study showed that 1hr of sports increased your life by 8hrs. 1hr very intensive sports increases it by 16hrs, 1hr of walking increases it by 2-4hrs. The study concluded on the fact that it probably only works up to 7-10hrs per week, as that's the level which makes injury more probable. They say "probably" because injury doesn't shorten the lifespan, it only makes in uncomfortable. Which is probably what you want: Longest comfortable life, followed by rapid descent.
repsilat 11y ago
> this study is purely associational, so cannot show whether exercise actually causes changes in telomere length, only that people who exercise have longer telomeres. > ... > So the message seems clear, he says. “Exercise is good” for your cells, and “more exercise in greater variety” is likely to be even better. Fascinating -- the first quoted sentence is logically equivalent to saying, "If you have short telomeres you're statistically unlikely to exercise much." The conclusion that exercise leads to shorter telomeres is empowering and optimistic, so it's no surprised the American scientists and press ran with it. The conclusion that people who exercise regularly are genetically predisposed to it is disempowering, though, and it wasn't mentioned at all. (It is consistent with jasode's sibling comment that exercise can speed up the ageing process, though.) I'd also be interested in the inverse correlation -- are sedentary lifestyles associated with shorter telomeres? What proportion of people in the study actually did exercise, and what proportion had shorter telomeres? Essentially, "show me the numbers in all of the boxes and let me draw my own conclusions."
isolate 11y ago
Personally, I think the question of the effect exercise has on my lifespan is irrelevant. A lot of people talk about exercise being valuable because it makes you healthy. I like all the wonderful benefits of being healthy and in good shape, yes, but I also genuinely like exercise. There is basically nothing as incredible as the right kind of physical exertion for me. If exercise is a vice, who cares? It's worth it.
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  Right on. For me, exercise provides a very convenient way of challenging myself. The fact that I look fantastic and I'm very fit are really cool side effects.
kingsley3 11y ago
Hi, I maintain the world's biggest spread sheet of life span experiments. I believe slowing aging can increase life span. It turns out that the effect of exercise on all-cause mortality is well studied. My big spread sheet summarizes about 80 experiments. They show that exercise usually lets us live longer. A histogram of their results is at http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=&media=science:histogram_of_exercise_vs_all_cause_mortality.png I think the trick is to not OVER train. I'm told that over-training is worse than no training, and just working up a light sweat is good. More findings from data mining my big spread sheet of life span experiments are at http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/doku.php?id=science:kingsleys_big_spread_sheet_of_life_span_experiments
kingsley3 11y ago
Hi, I maintain the world's biggest spread sheet of life span experiments. I believe slowing aging can increase life span. It turns out that the effect of exercise on all-cause mortality is well studied. My big spread sheet summarizes about 80 exercise experiments. They show that exercise usually lets us live longer. A histogram of their results is at http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=&media=science:histogram_of_exercise_vs_all_cause_mortality.png I think the trick is to not OVER train. I'm told that over-training is worse than no training, and just working up a light sweat is good. More findings from data mining my big spread sheet of life span experiments are at http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/doku.php?id=science:kingsleys_big_spread_sheet_of_life_span_experiments Thanks, Kingsley
deleted 11y ago
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dschiptsov 11y ago
Circulation. The difference is like between a rainforest and semi-desert. Efficient regeneration of tissues. Of course other factors matter. Air quality, variety of foods, water sources, sleep patterns, noise, stress, ecology in general. There is nothing new about these notions - actively working peasants in unspoiled remote areas are champions of longevity.
l1feh4ck 11y ago
Whether that study is true or not 'do exercises' at least you can have a healthy and fit body in your available life span.

107 points by tmbsundar 11y ago

csvan 11y ago

"Sitting is the new smoking"

abhi152 11y ago
very true.
- djhn 11y ago
  Except that it isn't. It would take a lot of obviously sitting-related deaths for it to warrant comparison to smaking. Stress may be the new smoking, but sitting is definitely not.

jacquesm 11y ago

I don't know if it will actually slow down aging (which is a very wide concept). But I do have a 'proof of 1' that cycling a lot will wear out your knees and hips prematurely. Bodies are like machines, if you use them a lot they will wear out because of over-use. If you use them very little they will atrophy. The balance is probably somewhere in the middle, yes, exercise but don't overdo it.

ChrisLTD 11y ago
"Bodies are like machines, if you use them a lot they will wear out because of over-use." One crucial difference between humans and machines is that humans regenerate and can grow stronger through careful exertion.
- geoka9 11y ago
  Not so with the joints. That's why you see so many great athletes end their careers prematurely due to knee and back injuries.
  - matwood 11y ago
    I think we need to be careful comparing regular people with 'great athletes'. The stresses a top athlete puts on their body are extreme because they are top athletes. With that said, many (most?) top athletes go their entire careers without a joint problem at all.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - npsimons 11y ago
    Which is exactly why ChrisLTD said "careful exertion". Also, extrapolating a tiny percentage (permanently injured professional athletes) of a tiny percentage (professional athletes) to the general populace is facetious. Your average person is nowhere near "too much physical exertion", albeit they may have bad form, but that can be cleared up by competent coaching (even self-coaching).
    - geoka9 11y ago
      What I'm trying to say is that while it's possible to cure almost any muscle-related injury with exercise and regimen (and the athletes do this all the time), it's not possible to do with a busted joint (and the athletes have to retire prematurely when they realize that having another surgery is not an option).
  - gozur88 11y ago
    Sure, but you're talking about people who exercise five or six hours a day. People with jobs and families couldn't do that if they wanted to.
    - brianwawok 11y ago
      I know a few ironmen that would be great to differ :)
      - 11y ago
- nickff 11y ago
  Only some 'components' regenerate, so you've got to be careful. Ligaments and spinal discs are non-'repairable' components.
  - matwood 11y ago
    While not body repairable, I have had my ACL replaced so it is fixable. For those non-repairable components what you want to do is build up the muscle around them. People are so scared about hurting their backs that they avoid doing any exercises to make the muscles that stabilize the lower back stronger. I routinely have people tell me at the gym they do not dead lift because they do not want to hurt their backs. The problem is a) learning to DL will teach you how to lift properly and b) it will strengthen the muscles in your back. For the record I tore my ACL doing inverts on the wakeboard. Not exactly typical exercising.
    - iofj 11y ago
      Keep in mind that those repair components are eukaryot cells, and they have two built in rules that are important here :\ 1) any individual cell, once X energy passes through them, they senescence 2) from the ovum you grew out of until the last cell alive when you die, only 128 cell divisions happen in that line. That means there is a finite supply of these repair components, these cells, and so there is a limit to how much energy can go through your body before you die. Therefore, you probably want to make sure "peak" effort in any reasonable time interval (e.g. a month, maybe a week) is pretty high, to encourage the machinery to remain well-maintained, but average effort is as low as possible. You should exercise to have a huge amount of effort for maybe 10-15 minutes per month, sprinting for instance, getting your heartrate up to 130+, and keeping it up for a short while, maybe 20-30 minutes, no more. Other than that, you should probably avoid exercise and eat healthy. There are other reasons gym is not a particularly good kind of exercise. It's just not very realistic. Running or biking in the real world, aside from being more fun than in a gym, is also a lot better for you. And probably, having a weekly game of basketball is far better than that.
  - shawnb576 11y ago
    Not true. I've had ligament damage that recovered. I've got two herniated discs that no longer give me much trouble (and I'm very active). No surgery, but careful management and activity choice.
vox_mollis 11y ago
But I do have a 'proof of 1' that cycling a lot will wear out your knees and hips prematurely. Interesting. I have a single anecdata point that short-duration heavy lifting cures the degenerative effects of putting miles on one's knees and hips.
- usaphp 11y ago
  Hi, can you tell me more about your experience?
  - vox_mollis 11y ago
    Sure. Took up incline walking/running over a decade ago to mitigate a moderate case of programmer's ass. The habit stuck, but over time, my knees (right knee in particular) really began to ache and swell badly. Overall energy began declining also, but that's beyond the scope of this context. At the suggestion of some local "gym bros", I swapped out carbohydrates for fats and switched half of the endurance exercise for resistance exercise. At first it hurt, but over the course of a couple months, my knee issues disappeared completely. But again, single anecdata point.
    - Kluny 11y ago
      I'll add a second. I road biked, mountain biked, and played polo, but had knee, hip, and shoulder pain all the time. Since doing resistance training, I've only got muscle pain. Still hurts, but it goes away sooner and it isn't anywhere near as annoying as joint pain.
      - npsimons 11y ago
        I'll add a third - hiked and rock climbed for years, always had some pain afterwards, even at lower body weights. Started lifting, now I hardly ever get sore after hiking and climbing, and if I do, it doesn't last long. If it does, it's a sign I'm probably coming down with something. Which also happens much less often since I started lifting. BTW, started lifting based on a book suggested on an HN thread years ago: "Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training" by Mark Rippetoe.
StriverGuy 11y ago
This is very misguided advice. Long bouts of endurance exercise can be very taxing and destructive to many body parts. Exercise as a whole can be done efficiently and effectively without wearing your body out. Anaerobic exercise (lifting weights) can improve collagen and muscle production via several hormonal pathways. These same pathways tend to have negative feedbacks from excess aerobic exercise (i.e. high cortisol, low GH output in distance athletes).
- xiaoma 11y ago
  The data for extreme endurance athletes such as marathoners is mixed. It's very possible that racing at long distances is a risk factor. The data on intense weight-lifting on the other hand is much more conclusive. Heart enargement, aortic dissection and a host of other heart related risks are sharply higher for extreme weightlifters. Lifting a couple of days a week and doing cardio 3-4 days a week and not going completely nuts with either is probably the safest. But sometimes it's fun to go nuts and shoot for a goal. In the big scheme of things, there are a lot worse hobbies to have.
  - npsimons 11y ago
    > for extreme weightlifters. Again with the extremes; people don't get "big" on accident, and moderate strength training provides a whole host of benefits without the dangers. More people should be lifting, with proper form and modest goals.
  - soperj 11y ago
    Yeah, "Extreme Weightlifting" doesn't necessarily mean you need to get big. When I was training for hockey when I was younger, at 18 I could bench 285, and easily leg press 990 pounds (that was the max the leg press machine could handle - 10 45's on each side and 2 on top, so I'd do sets of 20). The max I weighted that summer was 182 pounds(82.5 kg).
    - xiaoma 11y ago
      For sure. These days people in the 160s range are breaking 400. It's not something advisable from any sort of health perspective, but it is awesome and it's not that risky. http://www.criticalbench.com/Claude-Bouyer.htm http://www.criticalbench.com/Claude-Bouyer.htm
matwood 11y ago
What counts as 'a lot'? Is the cyclist doing any other exercising or just cycling? Did they have proper form? Were they predisposed genetically to poor knees or hips? Did they have proper rest between sessions? Were they ignoring over training warning signs? I'm asking these questions because I have been seeing more and more comments along the lines of exercising wears the body out and it breaks, so do not exercise. Exercising with proper form and rest should not do this. In fact the body should be getting stronger. One of the big things I see, particularly with runners and cyclists is very little thought to proper form. Running and cycling appear easy so I think people often do not think about form or technique.
- npsimons 11y ago
  There's also the factor of different types of exercise. Resistance training (again, with proper form) has done wonders for me (and before I trot out anecdata, I'll preface that resistance training has been prescribed for skeletal issues in the elderly for a while now). Things that used to hurt after "totally unrelated" exercise (hiking, climbing, etc), now no longer hurt. And I had been doing these activities for years - it wasn't until I started resistance training that the pain went away.
  - matwood 11y ago
    Exactly. Cycling in particular puts a person in a fixed awkward position for long periods of time (not much different than sitting at a desk for long periods of time). Cyclists must pay special attention to work the other muscles that do not get worked while cycling or they risk creating imbalances which leads to pain and injury.
e40 11y ago
Another anecdote: walking 4-5 miles a day for 20 years and my feet are a wreck. I finally found shoes (MBTs) that allowed me to continue walking. About 5 years ago I was afraid I'd have to stop. My knees are actually better, though. I've had 3 operations on my left knee and if I don't walk it gets very arthritic. With walking, it's fine.
- usaphp 11y ago
  Do you have a flat feet or some other condition with legs or knee positions? People with misaligned knees or flat foot tend to develop more problems from walking/running due to improper form because of that misalignment.
- matwood 11y ago
  So you walked pain free for 20 years and woke up one day and your feet were a wreck?
riggins 11y ago
Bodies are like machines, if you use them a lot they will wear out because of over-use. This is a poor analogy. Bodies can heal (i.e. regenerate tissue). Machines cannot. If this analogy was true, ultra-marathoners would be wearing out their joints rapidly. That's not what is being observed though. What is true is that you can injure joints by increasing the workload too fast. Joints can strengthen and adapt to increased loads but it happens slowly. So don't go from running 5 miles per outing to running 10 miles. Limit yourself to a gradual increase. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083867 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948208,00.html http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948208,0...
- Udo 11y ago
  There is no question that bodies are in fact machines, there are parts that regenerate and parts that don't. Many extreme sport enthusiasts carry life-long consequences of parts they broke during their activities. The issue here is more if the oxidative stress put on your components is offset or even completely overshadowed by the biochemical benefits of exercise, and there is indeed reason to believe that a moderate exercise regime - not unsurprisingly - may yield optimal results. Exercise too little and your body's machinery will start to suffer from use-it-or-lose-it symptoms. Exercise too much and you will cause an inordinate amount of mechanical wear that cannot be regenerated, plus there may be some biochemical stresses as well. I know "do it in moderation" makes for a shitty headline that interests nobody, but all things being equal that should probably be the take-away here. I agree with you about gradual increase being advisable, but perpetually aiming for your physical limits may not be the most appropriate course of action for individuals who are already fit.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- bootload 11y ago
  "What is true is that you can injure joints by increasing the workload too fast. Joints can strengthen and adapt to increased loads but it happens slowly. So don't go from running 5 miles per outing to running 10 miles." Underrated point. This is especially noticeable carrying packs. If you don't train to improve your joint strength (tendons and surrounding tissue, not muscle) you will injure yourself. Slowly you can build up to heavier weights. I now regularly train with 10kg, occasionally 15kg and alternate with 1kg. 2000km this year.
seivan 11y ago
Running to. Will really wear you out.
codingdave 11y ago
A few years back, when my knees started to crackle when biking, I switched from a more standard frame geometry on my bike to one where the pedals were kicked forward about 6 inches, with the seat a bit lower, and handlebars a bit higher. It cleared all the knee and hip problems up practically instantly. I suspect the long-term problems with biking are more because bike designs often maximize performance over long-term joint health.
- xur17 11y ago
  I'd love to hear more about this - any chance you have an example bike?
  - codingdave 11y ago
    Sure, just google crank-forward bikes, and there are dozens of them on the market now.Many of them trend towards hipster/cruiser, which is not my personal style, but there are many choices. The one I have is one of these -- http://www.electrabike.com/bikes/townie/original-3i-3i-eq?g=mens http://www.electrabike.com/bikes/townie/original-3i-3i-eq?g=...
- justinator 11y ago
  > I suspect the long-term problems with biking are more > because bike designs often maximize performance over > long-term joint health. Eh, yes and no. The modern road bike geometry looks the way it does because of the rules in the governing body (the UCI). Up until very recently, they were more interested in keeping tradition, then technological improvements. Think of a bike geometry and design much like an F1 class of race cars. A faster bike on the road would be a recumbent, and by quite a bit, as recumbents are much more aerodynamic. An added benefit to some is any saddle issues could go away, as there's no saddle, just a seat. I could also see that the aggressive posture needed to maximize aerodynamics on a regular road bike in an attempt to squeeze out the maximum amount of aerodynamic advantage on a platform that's really not all about that could cause problems in some people, and relaxing this would be more comfortable, without a doubt - exactly like you have observed. You do need an amount of strength and flexibility to stay in those aerodynamic postures. I've had minor knee issues with riding bikes (and I ride a lot of them!) I was fearing the worse - overuse sounded plausible. Rather, it was simply a muscle imbalance from riding so much, which was pulling me knee in funny ways. PT, stretching, and specific exercises - as well as getting fit for my bike correctly, I've cleared that up, and since have ridden thousands and thousands of miles.
gist 11y ago
"that cycling a lot will wear out your knees and hips prematurely." Can you define what you mean by "a lot" in both number of years and typical time spent? Typical routine?
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Younger years: 100's of km/day easy on old fashioned race bikes, later on anything from recumbents to hand built bikes specifically for my size. All in all I wore out about 6 bikes over the years while maintaining them very well in the intermediate. I quit riding hard at 27, but I've never been without a bike and I'm still quite fast just don't have the endurance any more. If I do more than 100 km (a bit more than 3 hours riding) I will know about it the next day. Not in a debilitating way, just a strong reminder to not overdo it. My current regular bike is a bike my son built for me that is best described as a trek bike with some oddities and my current recumbent is a zephyr. I don't ride the zephyr a lot because it is very dangerous in traffic to be that low and fast. And then there is the 'daddy bike', an upright with two child seats, fully loaded (bike, two toddlers, me) > 120 kg. It takes a while to get that up to speed but once it moves it is quite easy to ride.
OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
Chronic cardio or other long session exercise is bad for the body, recent science is coming firmly down on the side of short sharp exercise instead like Tabata sprints etc.
- markeroon 11y ago
  Citation plz (no paleo blogs.)
  - OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
    Cardiac Arrhythmias =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/118/8/800.abstract?ijkey=4084342f01af053002c99bb07699d54e9b3d6fc5&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/118/8/800.abstract?ijkey... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19633305 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19633305 Atherosclerosis =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21200345 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21200345 http://www.healio.com/cardiology/chd-prevention/news/online/%7Bcdd889ca-bfa9-4ca7-9c95-25ad09d999ee%7D/endurance-runners-at-risk-for-calcified-coronary-plaque http://www.healio.com/cardiology/chd-prevention/news/online/... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18426850 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18426850 Oxidative Stress =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16941810 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16941810
OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
Chronic cardio or other long session exercise is bad for the body, recent science is coming firmly down on the side of short sharp exercise instead like Tabata sprints etc and very light but longer term as in gently walking an hour a day etc. It's common sense really.
doe88 11y ago
> cycling a lot will wear out your knees and hips prematurely. I've observed having an higher cadence seems to impact less my knees and my back, I've no hard evidence though, it is just modifications I made along the years on my training.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  That makes good sense.
- brianwawok 11y ago
  Power when biking is measured in watts. You can pedal at 40 rpm or 90 and put out the same watts. 90 is clearly going to be less maximal force.
brianwawok 11y ago
Did you get professional bike fits from well respected fitters? Not an accusation but as a biker something I care about. So far since I have been well fit with a bike I have seen no symptoms of anything bad, and my quality of life is through the roof.(run and swim too but tangential I suppose, though runners hear a lot about knees wearing out which has generally been proven false). Or the other option is maybe your hip was doomed if you biked or not... not sure how to totally tease that out with out identical twins studies..
- jacquesm 11y ago
  The hip is something that I would have probably ended up with anyway. The knees from using way too heavy gears when I was still in my teens. Delayed action.
shawnb576 11y ago
Yeah, maybe your N=1 causation hypothesis isn't all that well reasoned. This concept is absolutely false. With a proper setup, you should be able to ride all you want without anything "wearing out". Bodies don't "wear out", in fact they respond well when stress is applied correctly. It gets harder as you age, but that's an orthogonal issue. Injury and recovery is part of being active. I've done 10 Ironmans and seen many, many people in their 40s, 50s, 60s happily cranking out miles and ending up looking younger than when they started. What wears bodies out is not using them.

jasode 11y ago

And to add to the confusion, you have another study considering the opposite conclusion. The study explored the effects of exercise increasing free radicals and advanced aging. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9177582 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9177582

outlace 11y ago
This study sort of makes an assumption that increased free radicals causes (at least in part) aging (free radical theory of aging). The relationship between radical oxygen species (free radicals) and aging is not at all clear to my understanding. (this paper is from 1997) Moreover, it's possible that the tissues most susceptible to oxidative stress during exercise (i.e. muscle) are also most adapted to handle it. So overall, yes ROS increase but mostly just in muscle where it is well-adapted to handle it, and the benefits of exercise (lowering blood pressure, better circulation, etc) trump any detriments of increased ROS. Edit: Found this review [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23434764 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23434764 ] that considers evidence that ROS may actually be a part of a pro-survival signal cascade
mikkom 11y ago
This also very related and just released. This was published in quite many local (finnish) newspapers as this is a joint project of Jyväskylä (finnish) and Michican universities. http://www.nature.com/articles/srep18259 http://www.nature.com/articles/srep18259

amelius 11y ago

Perhaps cardio training. But bodybuilding will probably not slow down aging; I suppose it wears one down physically, and also imposes a huge load on the central nervous system. It would be nice to have a scientific study on this, to see to what extent this is true.

furfish 11y ago

According to the law of headlines the answer is "no".

calebm 11y ago

My wife and I are reading this book called "Move Your DNA" (by Katy Bowman). She has an interesting thesis: modern exercise is "junk movement" (like "junk" food). The idea is that humans were meant to move more throughout the day, and that trying to cram all of our needed movement into a small 45-minute block is similar to how junk food crams tons of calories into a small bit of food. We're not finished with it yet, but initially, I find it interesting.

tertius 11y ago
> The idea is that humans were meant to move more throughout the day I don't know if you can necessarily compare this to tons of calories (think fat from an animal) into a bit of food. Now the source of the calories yes.
dghughes 11y ago
Then you have studies showing High Intensity Training (HIT) where you only exercise three minutes per week is beneficial. But it may depend on your genes. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17177251 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17177251 >The idea is that humans were meant to move more throughout the day My parents are always on the go gardening, going to auctions, walking a bit, always doing something. Dad eats a lot but eats everything fish, shellfish, many kinds of meat, all kinds of vegetables he gets a huge variety of food. I'm sitting watching my computer screen not moving, I eat a limited diet and I think I will be worse off than my parents. And I think Millennials will be even worse I've never seen so many fat people at such a young age, at least bottom out at mid 40s and not mid teens.
djhn 11y ago
Along the same lines (speculatory evolutionary biology?) is the observation that in training for endurance sports such as running, cycling, skiing and rowing we best respond to either long, slow distance training at very low intensities (like in persistance hunting) or high-intensity sprints/bouts (like combat) because those were the main "athletic" stimuli for our ancestors. http://www.sportsci.org/2009/sai.htm http://www.sportsci.org/2009/sai.htm

reasonattlm 11y ago

The most interesting result from recent research into exercise is this: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=159410&CultureCode=en http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=159410&Cult... http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep18259 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep18259 An open access paper on exercise in identical and non-identical twin pairs was recently published, the data suggesting that long-term differences in physical activity between identical twins don't result in any significant difference in longevity, even though other differences in health outcomes are observed. We might draw parallels between this and similar results observed in a mouse study from a few years back, in which the exercising mice had better health but no increase in maximum life span. The researchers here theorize that the well-known epidemiological association between exercise and increased life expectancy is perhaps as much a matter of genetics as of choice. For any observed statistical relationship in humans there are always questions of causation. This is especially true in the web of associations related to aging and mortality in population data, in which life expectancy, wealth, social status, intelligence, education, exercise, diet, and culture all have ties to one another. That we pay great attention to these relationships is a function of having no good way to treat aging, I've long thought: we care about trivial differences in life expectancy of a few years here and a few years there because this is all that is in our power to change right now, and that will continue until the development of rejuvenation therapies. Life expectancy and exercise are linked robustly in many data sets, and even more so now that accelerometers are so cheap and ubiquitous that even large studies can use them to obtain actual rather than self-reported data on physical activity. There are studies to demonstrate longer life expectancy in athletes, longer life expectancy in those who exercise modestly versus those who are sedentary, and so forth. What are these studies measuring, however? For example, what if people who are more robust and would live longer regardless of exercise tend to exercise more? Or perhaps exercise levels are a good proxy for lower levels of visceral fat tissue and consequent chronic inflammation - themselves linked to greater risk of age-related disease and mortality. The results of this study definitely muddy the waters in the search for causation and mechanism in exercise and mortality reduction, providing evidence to support a state of considerable complexity in the relationship between exercise, genetics, and outcomes in health. Nothing in biology is ever as simple as we'd like it to be, so this should perhaps be expected. Regardless he data presented below should be added to the many past studies on exercise and mortality, and its weight balanced accordingly - never take any single set of data and interpretations as gospel in science. This doesn't change the consensus, which is that you should exercise, and that you are expected to obtain benefits by doing so. It does add subtlety to the picture, however.

nikolay 11y ago

Aerobic exercise actually speeds it up due to increased oxidation in the system, but, in general, any BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) increase also speeds up your demise, but this is in the ideal situation where we all die naturally, not from chronic disease, cancer, etc. Why? Because our cells can't divide indefinitely (Hayflick limit [0]). Any activity that increases growth factors also can speed up cancerous growth. So, don't run, don't exercise - just walk, do gardening work, and other normal human activities. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayflick_limit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayflick_limit

nikolay 11y ago
All gym-goers and runners gang up and downvote me... but this won't change what I said. Read up, educate yourself, research other species, and you'll find the truth. And let me be even more direct: you're endorphins junkies!
- 88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago
  People aren't downvoting you because they disagree with you, they are downvoting you because your comment was poorly written and unconvincing.
  - nikolay 11y ago
    It's still better than not bothering to take a stance, right? Time is limited, I work at the moment, past deadlines, etc. Often if you reply too late, nobody notices. I don't comment for vanity reasons, but for that one person that can appreciate my effort.
    - 88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago
      > It's still better than not bothering to take a stance, right? No. It just makes the comments less valuable. I come to this site because of the diversity of insight and high quality of posts. No one is tallying the stances and declaring a "winner". 100,000 anti-vaxxer posts aren't going to make me an anti-vaxxer. One post that goes into the details of the molecular mechanisms that show how the chemicals in vaccines cause autism might (not that I expect it to happen, since it's baloney, but I hope you take my point).

KerrickStaley 11y ago

This is an observational study and proves correlation, not causation. People whose bodies age slowly for whatever reason are more likely to be athletic, especially in the 40-65 age range they called out.

5555624 11y ago

Previous comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10468025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10468025

jasonmp85 11y ago

I think the operative question is does it slow down aging at a rate faster than the time you spend exercising?

tajen 11y ago
A precedent study showed that 1hr of sports increased your life by 8hrs. 1hr very intensive sports increases it by 16hrs, 1hr of walking increases it by 2-4hrs. The study concluded on the fact that it probably only works up to 7-10hrs per week, as that's the level which makes injury more probable. They say "probably" because injury doesn't shorten the lifespan, it only makes in uncomfortable. Which is probably what you want: Longest comfortable life, followed by rapid descent.

repsilat 11y ago

> this study is purely associational, so cannot show whether exercise actually causes changes in telomere length, only that people who exercise have longer telomeres. > ... > So the message seems clear, he says. “Exercise is good” for your cells, and “more exercise in greater variety” is likely to be even better. Fascinating -- the first quoted sentence is logically equivalent to saying, "If you have short telomeres you're statistically unlikely to exercise much." The conclusion that exercise leads to shorter telomeres is empowering and optimistic, so it's no surprised the American scientists and press ran with it. The conclusion that people who exercise regularly are genetically predisposed to it is disempowering, though, and it wasn't mentioned at all. (It is consistent with jasode's sibling comment that exercise can speed up the ageing process, though.) I'd also be interested in the inverse correlation -- are sedentary lifestyles associated with shorter telomeres? What proportion of people in the study actually did exercise, and what proportion had shorter telomeres? Essentially, "show me the numbers in all of the boxes and let me draw my own conclusions."

isolate 11y ago

Personally, I think the question of the effect exercise has on my lifespan is irrelevant. A lot of people talk about exercise being valuable because it makes you healthy. I like all the wonderful benefits of being healthy and in good shape, yes, but I also genuinely like exercise. There is basically nothing as incredible as the right kind of physical exertion for me. If exercise is a vice, who cares? It's worth it.

CuriouslyC 11y ago
Right on. For me, exercise provides a very convenient way of challenging myself. The fact that I look fantastic and I'm very fit are really cool side effects.

kingsley3 11y ago

Hi, I maintain the world's biggest spread sheet of life span experiments. I believe slowing aging can increase life span. It turns out that the effect of exercise on all-cause mortality is well studied. My big spread sheet summarizes about 80 experiments. They show that exercise usually lets us live longer. A histogram of their results is at http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=&media=science:histogram_of_exercise_vs_all_cause_mortality.png I think the trick is to not OVER train. I'm told that over-training is worse than no training, and just working up a light sweat is good. More findings from data mining my big spread sheet of life span experiments are at http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/doku.php?id=science:kingsleys_big_spread_sheet_of_life_span_experiments

kingsley3 11y ago

Hi, I maintain the world's biggest spread sheet of life span experiments. I believe slowing aging can increase life span. It turns out that the effect of exercise on all-cause mortality is well studied. My big spread sheet summarizes about 80 exercise experiments. They show that exercise usually lets us live longer. A histogram of their results is at http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=&media=science:histogram_of_exercise_vs_all_cause_mortality.png I think the trick is to not OVER train. I'm told that over-training is worse than no training, and just working up a light sweat is good. More findings from data mining my big spread sheet of life span experiments are at http://morse.kiwi.nz/kingsley/doku.php?id=science:kingsleys_big_spread_sheet_of_life_span_experiments Thanks, Kingsley

deleted 11y ago

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dschiptsov 11y ago

Circulation. The difference is like between a rainforest and semi-desert. Efficient regeneration of tissues. Of course other factors matter. Air quality, variety of foods, water sources, sleep patterns, noise, stress, ecology in general. There is nothing new about these notions - actively working peasants in unspoiled remote areas are champions of longevity.

l1feh4ck 11y ago

Whether that study is true or not 'do exercises' at least you can have a healthy and fit body in your available life span.