Study seems to imply aerobic exercise better at preventing ageing - credible?

[alb]

Hi
Many thanks for all your work separating the wheat from the chaff in sports medicine. I saw this study reported in the press and wondered what you would make of it:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/running-anti-ageing-weight-training-health-fitness-body-cells-exercise-a8655536.html

[Austin Baraki]

The paper: https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/a...ehy585/5193508

Unfortunately don't have time to read and review the paper in detail, but it's important to note:

1) nothing "prevents aging"
2) the outcomes of the study relate to telomerase activity and telomere length, which, while certainly interesting, is not a "patient-relevant" outcome measure
3) even if this were true, what do we do with that information? we already strongly suggest a combination fo strength & conditioning-based exercise, as each provides unique and important benefits.

[tfranc]

Another study just came out from the University of Leipzig in Germany tracking a small sample of 124 previously untrained individuals over a 6 month period to see the effects of LISS, HIIT and circuit resistance training on telomere length. The session lengths were 45 minutes long, 3x per week. LISS was sustained jogging at 60% max heart rate, HIIT was a 4x4 method with warm up and cool down, and circuit training was machine based and called for 1 set to failure ~20 reps on each machine. Results showed an increase in telomere length from LISS and HIIT training regimens, but not from circuit resistance training.

I brought this study up with Jordan this morning and he basically said that measuring telomere length in untrained individuals over 6 months has no clinical implications.

Who’s to say telomere length doesn’t increase over 1+ years of resistance training anyway? No one at this point in time. Not a study to change overall training management.

[alb]

Thanks!
I suppose there is one known way to prevent ageing but it has unpleasant side effects and involves the Grim Reaper.

[RLBK]

A fun side note- telomerase activity is a neat trick cancers have been found to take advantage of to be.. well.. cancerous! Does this mean exercise is gunna cause some benign growth to go cray? Im sure some gossip rag will say so, likely while promoting some kinda health supplement pyramid scheme.

My idiocy aside and on a mildly more serious note, in studies such as this where they look at isolated blood cells then extrapolate to the organism is the stated conclusion a bit of hype or is it biologically appropriate from a clinical perspective? I am curious what a doctor would think of this.. the cell level v. organism, not my idiocy.

[empirical]

Tfranc this is the same study.

I'm not an expert in powerlifting and sports medicine but I'm a doctor and have a PhD in genetics.

I have looked through the paper briefly.
One thing that struck me is that the 'resistance training' arm of the study was very poor programming. They were previously untrained so some form of linear progression each workout might be reasonable. In fact, it was the following:

"Resistance training was a circle training of eight machine-based exercises: back extension, crunch, pull-down, seated row, seated leg curl, seated leg extension, seated chest press, and lying leg press. Twenty repetition maximum (RM) was determined every 6 weeks and training weights were adjusted."

20 rep max! Training weights adjusted every 6 weeks!
Sounds like conditioning rather than strength training.

Regarding telomere length and telomerase activity, this was only determined in (white) blood cells. So perhaps not surprising that activities resulting in likely greatest increase in overall total blood flow (cardiac output) would see the greatest changes in circulatory cells. Why not study telomeres in muscle cells? It may or may not have any relevance to specific diseases such as those caused by blood vessel problems. But to generalise the results to aging as a whole is flawed in my opinion.

[tfranc]

Tfranc this is the same study.

I'm not an expert in powerlifting and sports medicine but I'm a doctor and have a PhD in genetics.

I have looked through the paper briefly.
One thing that struck me is that the 'resistance training' arm of the study was very poor programming. They were previously untrained so some form of linear progression each workout might be reasonable. In fact, it was the following:

"Resistance training was a circle training of eight machine-based exercises: back extension, crunch, pull-down, seated row, seated leg curl, seated leg extension, seated chest press, and lying leg press. Twenty repetition maximum (RM) was determined every 6 weeks and training weights were adjusted."

20 rep max! Training weights adjusted every 6 weeks!
Sounds like conditioning rather than strength training.

Regarding telomere length and telomerase activity, this was only determined in (white) blood cells. So perhaps not surprising that activities resulting in likely greatest increase in overall total blood flow (cardiac output) would see the greatest changes in circulatory cells. Why not study telomeres in muscle cells? It may or may not have any relevance to specific diseases such as those caused by blood vessel problems. But to generalise the results to aging as a whole is flawed in my opinion.

Oh, hah, my mistake.

It is interesting that even though the parameters for the circuit training resemble conditioning, in some ways similar to the other 2 modalities, the results were what they were.

Is it possible that telomeres in certain cells are effected by certain activities, but not others?

[Euby]

These things are all relatively interesting personally, but for me the proof is really in the pudding. When I did nothing but cardio (which I did for years before I started lifting), I felt pretty good but something was always missing. The older I got the more it became apparent that I was losing muscle mass. I'm only 46 now and have been lifting for almost 2 years, so I can only imagine what it would have looked like if I had done nothing but cardio for another 20 years. Talk about ending up weak and frail! Who cares if you can walk 3-5 miles a day if you are weak?

When I started SSLP two years ago, I got really strong quickly and put back on a lot of muscle that I had back in my 20's. I looked younger in most every way, but I was a bit fluffy on top of that. As paradigms tend to work, my conditioning went to shit from not doing any cardio work at all. It was shocking how FAST my conditioning fell off. I could feel that loss of conditioning very easily, even during simple things like climbing a couple flights of stairs. But I started doing the GPP sessions like BBM suggests, and my conditioning returned very quickly.

I feel like I owe BOTH Starting Strength (the on-ramp) and Jordan/Austin/Leah (the INTERSTATE) my life, just because I feel like I got it back twice now.