6 ms·

Little Exercise, Big Effects: Reversing Aging

158 points by jamesbritt 15y ago

jamiegull 15y ago
The 0.7km/week for a house mouse translates to about 7.5 miles/week for a 5'8" tall man compared to a 10cm long mouse. Lots of assumptions, but 7.5 miles is way more than the average sedentary person jogs in a week. It's also very easy to reach for a recreational jogger. Lots of assumptions in there.
- brfox 15y ago
  And animal models of disease (or aging) are much simpler than real life human biology. One big reason being that lab strains of mice (and maybe the rats in this study, too) are inbred and very homogeneous - genetically speaking. So, something which has a big effect in a lab animal might be due to some strange combination of genes that most "outbred" species (like humans) don't ever have.
ristretto 15y ago
The HN title gives the impression that they reversed aging. They only reversed changes in memory performance in old mice that are infected with E.coli. It would be interesting to know how they assessed memory performance - are they using spatial memory tests?
- amirmc 15y ago
  Good question. Appears that they use contextual fear conditioning to assess memory. From the research article: "We chose to use the immediate-shock fear conditioning paradigm (Fanselow, 1990; Rudy et al., 2002) as the learning task. Here, foot shock is delivered very quickly upon exposure to the experimental context on the fear conditioning day. However, the rats are preexposed to the context at an earlier time. The preexposures are required so that the subjects are able to form a 'conjunctive representation' of the context, so that it can be associated with the shock on the conditioning day (Rudy et al., 2002). We chose this fear conditioning paradigm because it is highly and specifically dependent on the hippocampus (Rudy et al., 2002), and we have already shown that E. coli interferes with memory of this task in aging rats (Barrientos et al., 2006)"
- jamesbritt 15y ago
  The HN title gives the impression that they reversed aging. The initial title was too long for HN, so I truncated it. I apologize if it ended up misleading.
Alex3917 15y ago
For what it's worth, cannabis also prevents neuroinflammation, even in extremely low doses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uVXs6CY2ps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uVXs6CY2ps http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/clinical.pdf http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/clinical.pdf The endocannabinoid system seems to be the main mechanism our bodies use to naturally regulate inflammation. My understanding is that there is a growing belief among cannabinoid researchers that our cannabinoid receptors can get blocked as we get older, and so there may be a need to either supplement with phytocannabinoids and/or employ various techniques to unmethylate our CB1 receptors. There are a number of folks doing pre-clinical research on cannabinoids as potential treatments for alzheimers and other inflammatory / autoimmune diseases using various cannabinoids. Here is a cool paper about how colorectal cancer seems to result from the CB1 receptors being knocked out: http://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/turned-off-cannabinoid-receptor-turns-colorectal-tumor-growth-5233.html http://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/turned-off-cannabinoid-... It's possible that most cancers result from the same mechanism, although we don't really know yet. What we do know is that regular marijuana users have a 62% lower chance of head and neck cancers, and that there are an enormous amount of studies showing that cannabinoids can promote both apoptosis (cell death) in cancer cells and are anti-angiogenic, meaning they cut off the blood flow to the tumors.
- d2 15y ago
  The problem is that I feel less smart and less motivated for 2 weeks after smoking a joint.
  - grandalf 15y ago
    wrong strain?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    - barlo 15y ago
      Why not? I don't think he was making the opposite suggestion, either.
freesciencenow 15y ago
Paywalls for scientific research are evil. Here's the full paper: http://209.20.67.195/misc/littleexercise.pdf http://209.20.67.195/misc/littleexercise.pdf (See profile for why I do what I do.)
- amirmc 15y ago
  Your profile does not really explain why you do what you do (it basically repeats what you've said here). Care to expand?
  - freesciencenow 15y ago
    As my profile says, "I do this both to help the discussion and as an act of civil disobedience." Was there something more you wanted to know?
    - wisty 15y ago
      I that really civil disobedience? I though the point of civil disobedience is you try to take the blame, proving how brutal and unfair the system is. If you mean "activism, without being an idiot who breaks stuff" then I'm cool though.
asifjamil 15y ago
Interesting article. I remember reading somewhere the opposite hypothesis. The argument went like this: more exercise --> faster metabolism --> faster consumption of your body utilities --> lower life expectancy
- cpeterso 15y ago
  Well, the study is called "[A] Little Exercise, Big Effects", not "More Exercise, More Results."
  - asifjamil 15y ago
    not sure what you mean. i was pointing out an opposite effect.
    - sorbus 15y ago
      The above poster is - as I understand it - pointing out that this study does not necessarily contradict the hypothesis you mentioned. A small amount of exercise is shown to be beneficial, but it is entirely possible that larger amounts of exercise are detrimental. Do you know if any research has been done into that hypothesis? Because - failing a confirming study - it does not seem to fit with anything I've heard. I mean, maybe some organs can get overwhelmed if metabolism is pushed too high too quickly, but in general I doubt that a fast metabolism even correlates with lower life expectancy.
      - asifjamil 15y ago
        here is a study that does not correlate exercise but just faster metabolism in general (through an active hormone) > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061010022316.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061010022316.ht... "The study further strengthens the theory that the faster an animal's metabolism, the shorter its life, and vice versa"
- AngryParsley 15y ago
  Exercise does cause damage to your body, both structural and oxidative. Fortunately, that damage triggers repair mechanisms which make you stronger than before. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis#Physical_exercise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis#Physical_exercise An aside: Reading this article made me wonder why I tasted blood after particularly hard workouts. Apparently the heart can pump with enough pressure to rupture some of the capillaries in your lungs. A tiny amount of blood leaks out and gets aerosolized. At least, so says this paper: http://abughrai.be/Vulnerability%20of%20pulmonary%20capillaries%20during%20severe%20exercise%20821.full.pdf http://abughrai.be/Vulnerability%20of%20pulmonary%20capillar...
m0nastic 15y ago
My girlfriend just told me about a study that also seemed to show that exercise can be useful in treatment of schizophrenia (by promoting hippocampal development). This appears to be the study (she read it in Psychology Today, which didn't reference it by name): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20124113 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20124113
jonnathanson 15y ago
As an additional benefit to exercise: cardiovascular health is closely correlated with mental health and performance, due to the maintenance (or improvement) of blood flow to the brain.
ed2417 15y ago
In rats.
bennesvig 15y ago
This is what Art De Vany and the New Evolution Diet preaches. Short, high intensity exercise.

158 points by jamesbritt 15y ago

The 0.7km/week for a house mouse translates to about 7.5 miles/week for a 5'8" tall man compared to a 10cm long mouse. Lots of assumptions, but 7.5 miles is way more than the average sedentary person jogs in a week. It's also very easy to reach for a recreational jogger. Lots of assumptions in there.

brfox 15y ago
And animal models of disease (or aging) are much simpler than real life human biology. One big reason being that lab strains of mice (and maybe the rats in this study, too) are inbred and very homogeneous - genetically speaking. So, something which has a big effect in a lab animal might be due to some strange combination of genes that most "outbred" species (like humans) don't ever have.

ristretto 15y ago

The HN title gives the impression that they reversed aging. They only reversed changes in memory performance in old mice that are infected with E.coli. It would be interesting to know how they assessed memory performance - are they using spatial memory tests?

amirmc 15y ago
Good question. Appears that they use contextual fear conditioning to assess memory. From the research article: "We chose to use the immediate-shock fear conditioning paradigm (Fanselow, 1990; Rudy et al., 2002) as the learning task. Here, foot shock is delivered very quickly upon exposure to the experimental context on the fear conditioning day. However, the rats are preexposed to the context at an earlier time. The preexposures are required so that the subjects are able to form a 'conjunctive representation' of the context, so that it can be associated with the shock on the conditioning day (Rudy et al., 2002). We chose this fear conditioning paradigm because it is highly and specifically dependent on the hippocampus (Rudy et al., 2002), and we have already shown that E. coli interferes with memory of this task in aging rats (Barrientos et al., 2006)"
jamesbritt 15y ago
The HN title gives the impression that they reversed aging. The initial title was too long for HN, so I truncated it. I apologize if it ended up misleading.

Alex3917 15y ago

For what it's worth, cannabis also prevents neuroinflammation, even in extremely low doses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uVXs6CY2ps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uVXs6CY2ps http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/clinical.pdf http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/clinical.pdf The endocannabinoid system seems to be the main mechanism our bodies use to naturally regulate inflammation. My understanding is that there is a growing belief among cannabinoid researchers that our cannabinoid receptors can get blocked as we get older, and so there may be a need to either supplement with phytocannabinoids and/or employ various techniques to unmethylate our CB1 receptors. There are a number of folks doing pre-clinical research on cannabinoids as potential treatments for alzheimers and other inflammatory / autoimmune diseases using various cannabinoids. Here is a cool paper about how colorectal cancer seems to result from the CB1 receptors being knocked out: http://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/turned-off-cannabinoid-receptor-turns-colorectal-tumor-growth-5233.html http://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/turned-off-cannabinoid-... It's possible that most cancers result from the same mechanism, although we don't really know yet. What we do know is that regular marijuana users have a 62% lower chance of head and neck cancers, and that there are an enormous amount of studies showing that cannabinoids can promote both apoptosis (cell death) in cancer cells and are anti-angiogenic, meaning they cut off the blood flow to the tumors.

d2 15y ago
The problem is that I feel less smart and less motivated for 2 weeks after smoking a joint.
- grandalf 15y ago
  wrong strain?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - barlo 15y ago
    Why not? I don't think he was making the opposite suggestion, either.

freesciencenow 15y ago

Paywalls for scientific research are evil. Here's the full paper: http://209.20.67.195/misc/littleexercise.pdf http://209.20.67.195/misc/littleexercise.pdf (See profile for why I do what I do.)

amirmc 15y ago
Your profile does not really explain why you do what you do (it basically repeats what you've said here). Care to expand?
- freesciencenow 15y ago
  As my profile says, "I do this both to help the discussion and as an act of civil disobedience." Was there something more you wanted to know?
  - wisty 15y ago
    I that really civil disobedience? I though the point of civil disobedience is you try to take the blame, proving how brutal and unfair the system is. If you mean "activism, without being an idiot who breaks stuff" then I'm cool though.

asifjamil 15y ago

Interesting article. I remember reading somewhere the opposite hypothesis. The argument went like this: more exercise --> faster metabolism --> faster consumption of your body utilities --> lower life expectancy

cpeterso 15y ago
Well, the study is called "[A] Little Exercise, Big Effects", not "More Exercise, More Results."
- asifjamil 15y ago
  not sure what you mean. i was pointing out an opposite effect.
  - sorbus 15y ago
    The above poster is - as I understand it - pointing out that this study does not necessarily contradict the hypothesis you mentioned. A small amount of exercise is shown to be beneficial, but it is entirely possible that larger amounts of exercise are detrimental. Do you know if any research has been done into that hypothesis? Because - failing a confirming study - it does not seem to fit with anything I've heard. I mean, maybe some organs can get overwhelmed if metabolism is pushed too high too quickly, but in general I doubt that a fast metabolism even correlates with lower life expectancy.
    - asifjamil 15y ago
      here is a study that does not correlate exercise but just faster metabolism in general (through an active hormone) > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061010022316.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061010022316.ht... "The study further strengthens the theory that the faster an animal's metabolism, the shorter its life, and vice versa"
AngryParsley 15y ago
Exercise does cause damage to your body, both structural and oxidative. Fortunately, that damage triggers repair mechanisms which make you stronger than before. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis#Physical_exercise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis#Physical_exercise An aside: Reading this article made me wonder why I tasted blood after particularly hard workouts. Apparently the heart can pump with enough pressure to rupture some of the capillaries in your lungs. A tiny amount of blood leaks out and gets aerosolized. At least, so says this paper: http://abughrai.be/Vulnerability%20of%20pulmonary%20capillaries%20during%20severe%20exercise%20821.full.pdf http://abughrai.be/Vulnerability%20of%20pulmonary%20capillar...

m0nastic 15y ago

My girlfriend just told me about a study that also seemed to show that exercise can be useful in treatment of schizophrenia (by promoting hippocampal development). This appears to be the study (she read it in Psychology Today, which didn't reference it by name): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20124113 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20124113

jonnathanson 15y ago

As an additional benefit to exercise: cardiovascular health is closely correlated with mental health and performance, due to the maintenance (or improvement) of blood flow to the brain.

ed2417 15y ago

In rats.

bennesvig 15y ago

This is what Art De Vany and the New Evolution Diet preaches. Short, high intensity exercise.