In an analysis of septuagenarians who have been exercising for decades, researchers from Ball State University found that they have heart and lung capacities and muscle fitness like healthy people in their early 40’s. The findings were published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

“Exercise wins is the take-home message. We saw that people who exercise regularly year after year have better overall health,” said study senior author Dr. Scott Trappe, director of Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University.

The study provided a unique opportunity to assess the physiological benefit of lifelong exercise by comparing exercisers in their 70s (on average, each exercised about five days a week for about seven hours in total) with their younger counterparts and sedentary people their own age.

“These 75-year-olds have similar cardiovascular health to a 40- to 45-year-old,” Dr. Trappe said.

The cardiovascular health was gauged by having participants cycle on an indoor bike to determine maximum oxygen consumption (VO 2 max). Each participant also had a muscle biopsy to determine how capillaries formed and aerobic enzyme activity.

VO 2 max typically declines by about 10% per decade after age 30. The age-related reduction in VO 2 max is directly associated with an increasing risk of multiple chronic diseases, mortality and loss of independence.

The researchers also broke the male subjects into two groups: the performance group and the fitness group.

The performance group’s training revolved around competition. The fitness group’s revolved around simply exercising.

“For some of the variables, the performance group had some metrics that were superior to the fitness people, and cardiovascular capacity was one of those,” Dr. Trappe said.

“But things like muscle health and capillaries to support blood flow, they were equivalent between the two groups. Higher intensity didn’t necessarily take them to a higher place.”

“The benefits of the study should be obvious for the average person: 30 to 60 minutes of exercise a day may be the key to a healthy life,” he added.

“If you want to put 30 to 45 minutes of walking in one day, the amount of health benefit you are going to get from that is going to be significant and substantial.”

“Will it equal the person training for competitive performances? No. But, it will outdo the couch potato. In basic terms, 30 to 45 minutes of any type of exercise a day is beneficial.”

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Kevin J. Gries et al. 2018. Cardiovascular and skeletal muscle health with lifelong exercise. Journal of Applied Physiology 125 (5): 1636-1645; doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00174.2018