Oh rats — another reason to take care of myself

Do you know that medical research facilities get their subject mammals from breeding farms where monkeys, rats, mice, and even worms are bred solely for medical research. The species are chosen for how closely they resemble human physiology.

There are strains of research animals bred to live longer and shorter than normal lives, to be obese, and to be carriers of diseases.

Nearly all health discoveries are due to animal research. So if you hear about something being tested on, say, rats or monkeys, avoid shrugging it off as not being applicable to humans.

Anti-aging 

I have a major interest in anti-aging. How great is it if you can do something that will keep you looking and feeling like you did when you were in your youth? Some folks might say that sounds very vain. Sorry, can't agree; this is about staying alive.

While it's nice when someone guesses your age much lower than it is, how you feel is the important benefit. It's just that how you look reflects how you feel.

Anti-aging is about staying healthy, and the youthful looks just come along for the ride.

Nice hair was just the start

Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, a professor of pediatrics at McMaster University in Canada discovered that exercise kept a strain of mice from becoming gray prematurely, but that proved to be just the start.

Research published last month in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that exercise reduced or eliminated almost every detrimental effect of aging in the test mice.

Test mice were purpose-bred to grow old at an accelerated pace due to a genetic mutation that affects how well their bodies repair malfunctioning mitochondria.

Mitochondria are the tiny organelles within cells that combine oxygen and nutrients to create energy so the cells can perform all of the body's repairs.

Mito science

Mitochrondria have their own DNA that is separate from the cells in which they reside. In normal circumstances mitochondria accumulate small genetic mutations that are repaired and all remains well.

Problem is that as we age the mutations begin to overwhelm cellular system repair functions and the mitochondria start dying. Call it too much of a bad thing.

Many researchers believe the death of mitochondria is the cause of aging. Imagine that as our mitochondria die so do the cells in which they reside. As cells die our muscles and brains shrink, hair falls out or loses its color, skin wrinkles, and all the other stuff happens that makes us look and feel old runs its course. Call it normal aging.

Here's to less normal aging

The research used two groups of mice having the aforementioned genetic defect. One group ran on a treadmill and the other did not. Very simple.

But eight months into the project the sedentary mice were bald, frail, and dying. The runners remained youthful.

But perhaps most remarkable, although they still had the mutation that should have affected mitochondrial repair, the runners had more mitochondria over all and far fewer mutations than the sedentary mice.

At one year into the project none of the exercising mice had died of natural causes, but all the non-exercisers were deceased. Got that?

So what's the point. Dr. Tarnopolsky is involved in continuing research, but says for the time being the results of research are unambiguous in that they show that exercise slows aging.

You can read a complete report that includes a link to the research abstract if you would like more details. Maybe read it while you are doing your cardio.