If I could turn back time..

OK, so you may not have wanted a Cher song stuck in your head for the rest of the day, but you will want to know about this study.

Researchers were looking at the connection between exercise, aging and muscle loss.  They wanted to know to what extent strength training could affect the progression of sarcopenia.

They had two groups of male and female subjects -those younger than 25 and those older- participate in six months of leg strength training.  The exercise had tangible results for the older subjects.  Their leg strength increased by 50 percent.

What the researchers discovered next, however, was even better news.  It turns out that the strength training improved function on a genetic level in the older subjects, in effect making some of their genes perform like those in the 25 years and younger group.

Exercise Influences Genes

 

Scientists suspect that sarcopenia is related to mitochondrial dysfunction within skeletal muscle cells. Mitochondria are tiny organells within cells that convert certain chemicals into functional energy. Energy distribution is fundamental  to physiological processes like muscle exertion, building and repair.  

So the researchers in this study took muscle biopsies in order to take a closer look at the effects of strength training on a genetic level. They found that there were 596 genes expressed differently in older versus younger subjects.

Amazingly, the expression of 179 of those genes was positively affected by the exercise.

In other words, the strength training literally 'turned back the clock" on those genes, so that they acted a bit more like the gene of the younger adults. Cellular repair was improved and mitochondrial damage was lessened.

 

Strength training made subjects younger, to a degree, on a genetic level.