Exercise and Anti-Aging Are Related, Says New Study

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We’ve long been searching for the fountain of youth. And we’ve found it (at least in part) in serums, superfoods, and jars of high-end anti-aging cream. Turns out exercise may fight aging at the cellular level. According to new research, it might be time to add sweat to the list of powerful age-fighters.

A small study published in the journal Science Advances looked at a basic principle: In order to stay healthy, you have to keep your cells young. “Keeping your cells young is important to allow tissues to function properly,” says Anabelle Decottignies, a coauthor of the and professor of pharmacy and biomedical sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. “For instance, the reason why your immunity drops when you get older is because your immune cells get old. Same holds true for the brain: Brain cells get old with time, and this impairs brain function.” Simple enough, right?

While you can’t change your chronological age, exercise fights aging by protecting your cells from the ticking clock. For the study, Decottignies and her team drilled down into the chromosomes to study the anti-aging effects of exercise. They had ten participants ride stationary bikes for 45 minutes and took muscle biopsies before and after each cycling session. They found that exercise boosts muscle levels of a compound called NRF1, which impacts the telomeres at the ends of each of our chromosomes.

In case you need a high school biology refresher (don’t worry, we did, too) telomeres are like little biological clocks on the ends of our DNA. When they’re in good shape, our DNA (and therefore our cells) stays young. When they get damaged, the cells get old. “Unfortunately, telomeres get eroded with time,” says Decottignies. “But the speed of erosion is not fully fixed, which explains why you can impact your biological age.”

This is where producing more of that NRF1 is helpful. When activated by exercise, it can produce protective molecules for telomeres. “You could see this like varnish on nails,” says Decottignies. “Nails are the telomeres, and these molecules produced by the action of NRF1 are the varnish. You cannot change your nails (telomeres), but you can change the varnish that protects them.” In other words, each trip to the gym is like a fresh coat of gel polish.

One thing to note: All exercise is not created equal when it comes to delivering anti-aging benefits. According to Decottignies’s research and previous studies, strength training doesn’t stimulate the same production of NRF1 in your cells as cardio. So next time you’re dreading that 6 a.m. Spin class, just remind yourself that the early-morning sweat will be getting you one step closer to the kind of age-defying witchcraft Jennifer Aniston and J.Lo seem to have found.

Now watch as three woman share how they master the art of aging.

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