Aging well through exercise
We generally accept that physical frailty is inevitable as we grow older. A large number of studies in the past few years also showed that after 40 years, people typically lose their muscle mass with age. But a growing body of newer science suggests that such decline may not be inexorable. Exercise, the thinking goes, and you might be able to rewrite the future for your muscles. According to the results of a stirring study published recently in the journal The Physician and Sports Medicine, it was found that there was little evidence of deterioration in the older athletes' musculature. The athletes in their 70s and 80s had almost as much thigh muscle mass as the athletes in their 40s, with minor if any fat infiltration. The athletes also remained strong. The study suggests strongly that people do not have to lose muscle mass and function as they grow older. The changes that we have assumed were due to aging and therefore were unstoppable seem actually to be caused by inactivity. And that can be changed. In multiple earlier studies, people over 50 have been found to possess far fewer muscle motor units (a measure of muscle health) than young adults. But that was not true for the sexagenarian runners, whose leg muscles teemed with almost as many motor units as a separate group of active 25-year-olds. The mentioned studies were however for the most part, lifelong athletes. Whether similar benefits are attainable by people who take up exercise when they are middle-aged or older is not yet clear. But experts opined that there is no reason to think that you would not get similar results no matter when you start. However, scientists have not determined just how much activity is required to maintain muscle mass, or how intense it needs to be. But it can be said with certainty that any activity is better than none and more is probably better than less. Through exercise, we can preserve muscle mass and strength and avoid the decline from vitality to frailty.
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