Researchers at Canada's McMaster University have found an elixer of youth...the anti-aging powers of vigorous aerobic exercise. They genetically altered mice to age quickly. Some were put on a treadmill for 45 minutes for 3 times a week; the control group were left to lead a sedentary life. After 5 months the sedentary mice were nearly immobile and had gray and thinning fur. The active group had bright and shiny coats and bustled about their cages. Apparently exercise has a restorative function on the mitochondria (the power generators) of cells. As we get older, mitochondrial DNA mutates and causes aging. Exercise can reduce and even reverse this process of DNA mutation and the graying that comes with it.
A large study done at Taiwan National Health Research Institutes published in the medical journal Lancet found that just doing 15 minutes of moderate exercise daily could add 3 years to your life.
A study done at the University of Queensland found that one hour of TV viewing for adults over age 25 can shorten the viewer's life by 22 minutes, about the same effect as smoking 2 cigarettes. The viewer could have an 8% greater risk of dying by watching one hour of TV per day. Watching 6 hours per day averages a 5 year shorter lifespan. This study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
There is a mitochondrial theory of aging. "Aging is a disease. The human lifespan simply reflects the level of free radical damage that accumulates in cells. When enough damage occurs, cells can't survive properly anymore and they simply give up."
The food we eat is converted to usable energy in our cells' mitochondria. Aging is the slow oxidation (rusting) of our body's cells by oxidants. We can slow down oxidation by eating more anti-oxidants.
Many anti-oxidants cannot penetrate cell walls to reach the mitochondria; however our body makes a detoxifying enzyme called superoxidase dismutase which does. How do we boost this enzyme activity? Research done last year comparing omnivores versus vegetarians showed a 300% increase in expression of the superoxide dismutase gene in vegetarians. (see Nutritionfacts.org., Mitochondrial Theory of Aging).
These are just a few facts to store up in the back of my mind for those upcoming wintry days when I don't want to exercise...to just den up under a comforter with comfort foods until spring. It is pretty basic. We need to exercise and eat a vegetarian, high anti-oxidant diet to save our mitochondria and lengthen our lives. Oxidation of cells is like rusting. We rust as we age unless we do something about it.
"If you rest, you rust." Helen Hayes
Looking together in the same direction.
Sea otters hold hands while they sleep so they don't drift apart.
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