Lifelong Exercise Considerably Reduces Sarcopenia in Mice

In today's study, researchers report on a comparison between mice undergoing life-long exercise (a wheel in their cage) versus more sedentary mice (no wheel). The authors note that the age-related onset of sarcopenia is much reduced in the exercising mice, which we could perhaps take as more of an indication of the harms of a lack of exercise than of the benefits of exercise per se. This is perhaps the least interesting part of the data and discussion, however. One of the points being made by the researchers is that the effects of life-long exercise are underestimated by the research community, because this intervention is not well studied in either mice or humans, at least in comparison to shorter periods of exercise commencing in old age. The other point being made is that while it is known that exercise helps to blunt the loss of capillary density with age, the markers that the researchers assessed for cellular biochemistry related to angiogenesis, the creation of blood vessels, are not telling a story that matches up with the observed outcome. Thus the present understanding of the way in which exercise interacts with maintenance of capillary networks over the long term is probably incomplete, and there are other pathways to discover and investigate. Capillary density is important in the operation of energy-hungry tissues such as muscle and the brain, being the road by which nutrients reach cells. Fewer capillaries means a lesser supply of nutrients and a con...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs