Exercise Health Benefits Include Natural Stress Relief
Exercise health benefits from a good, hard workout...
where you sweat like crazy and bring your heart rate up...
can include reducing the effects of stress on cellular aging according to new research.
It seems that brief bouts of vigorous activity reduced one of the most important signs of cellular aging - telomere shortening.
For those not up on their biology, telomeres are small strands of genetic material that look almost like a tail at the end of a cell.
Experts recognize the shortening of these structures as an indicator of aging.
There's also a growing body of evidence that suggests short telomeres are tied to health problems like coronary heart disease, diabetes and early death.
Think of these structures much like a biological marker of the wear and tear of living that includes genetic influences, lifestyle and stress.
The latest research is the first to find that exercise can prevent the shortening of telomeres due to stress.
The study included 63 post-menopausal women, all healthy, many highly stressed, who were divided into two groups - inactive and active based on how much they exercised over a three-day period.
At the end of each day the subjects reported the number of minutes of vigorous exercise they'd done.
To be considered vigorous, the activity had to increase the heart rate and/or cause sweating.
They also reported their life stress over the past month.
The immune cells in the subjects' blood were also examined to determine telomere length.
The team found that the women in the inactive group who were under stress had shorter telomeres than the active (exercising as little as 42 minutes over that three day period) women who were also considered high stress.
In other words, stress affected the telomeres of sedentary women, but left no sign on the active women.
This is great news for the chronically stressed.
We know that stress is bad for the body, the heart, and makes you look worn and haggard, even putting you at increased risk for infections.
Evidence is mounting that stress and health may be linked, and it's empowering to find something that anyone, especially the chronically stressed, can do to help blunt the effect on the body.
The study authors conclude that 13 minutes (or more) of vigorous exercise each day seems to be the key amount that ties into longer telomeres.
These are very close to the CDC recommendations of 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, or 150 minutes of moderate exercise (plus weight bearing exercise) every week for adults to stay fit.
This latest study builds on some fascinating earlier work that documented the effect of chronic stress on telomere length in immune cells.
A 2004 study found that the implications of stress are felt deep inside the cells, impacting aging and possibly even disease development.
There has been extensive research on exercise - but this is the first work to show that exercise health benefits includes some protection from the shortening of telomeres due to stress.
where you sweat like crazy and bring your heart rate up...
can include reducing the effects of stress on cellular aging according to new research.
It seems that brief bouts of vigorous activity reduced one of the most important signs of cellular aging - telomere shortening.
For those not up on their biology, telomeres are small strands of genetic material that look almost like a tail at the end of a cell.
Experts recognize the shortening of these structures as an indicator of aging.
There's also a growing body of evidence that suggests short telomeres are tied to health problems like coronary heart disease, diabetes and early death.
Think of these structures much like a biological marker of the wear and tear of living that includes genetic influences, lifestyle and stress.
The latest research is the first to find that exercise can prevent the shortening of telomeres due to stress.
The study included 63 post-menopausal women, all healthy, many highly stressed, who were divided into two groups - inactive and active based on how much they exercised over a three-day period.
At the end of each day the subjects reported the number of minutes of vigorous exercise they'd done.
To be considered vigorous, the activity had to increase the heart rate and/or cause sweating.
They also reported their life stress over the past month.
The immune cells in the subjects' blood were also examined to determine telomere length.
The team found that the women in the inactive group who were under stress had shorter telomeres than the active (exercising as little as 42 minutes over that three day period) women who were also considered high stress.
In other words, stress affected the telomeres of sedentary women, but left no sign on the active women.
This is great news for the chronically stressed.
We know that stress is bad for the body, the heart, and makes you look worn and haggard, even putting you at increased risk for infections.
Evidence is mounting that stress and health may be linked, and it's empowering to find something that anyone, especially the chronically stressed, can do to help blunt the effect on the body.
The study authors conclude that 13 minutes (or more) of vigorous exercise each day seems to be the key amount that ties into longer telomeres.
These are very close to the CDC recommendations of 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, or 150 minutes of moderate exercise (plus weight bearing exercise) every week for adults to stay fit.
This latest study builds on some fascinating earlier work that documented the effect of chronic stress on telomere length in immune cells.
A 2004 study found that the implications of stress are felt deep inside the cells, impacting aging and possibly even disease development.
There has been extensive research on exercise - but this is the first work to show that exercise health benefits includes some protection from the shortening of telomeres due to stress.
Source...