Why gentle jogging can knock years off your age

by JAMES CHAPMAN, Daily Mail

It can take only moderate exercise to quickly combat or even reverse the effects of ageing, scientists claim today.

They found that just 30 minutes of activity three times a week was enough to 'knock decades' off the 'physiological age' of middle-aged men.

By contrast, three weeks of remaining sedentary had a more profound impact on physical strength and capacity than 30 years of ageing.

Researchers who studied a group of males for 35 years said their findings 'dramatically reinforced' the importance of regular exercise at whatever age.

Six months of light training was enough to reverse the decline in physical conditioning associated with growing older, according to experts at the Southwestern Medical Centre in Dallas, Texas.

Their report, published in the medical journal Circulation, is based on test results of five healthy men, aged 50 and 51, who were originally studied in 1966.

Doctors tested the effects of age and regularity of exercise on how the heart responded to physical activity.

Volunteers stayed idle for 20 days as researchers assessed the impact on their physical capacity. This was then compared to the effects of ageing over the next 30 years.

In middle-age, volunteers completed a six-month training programme of walking, jogging and sessions on an exercise bike.

The result was that the amount of blood the heart could pump and the body's uptake of oxygen - key indicators of fitness - improved dramatically.

'This underscores the relationship between physical activity and cardiovascular fitness, or aerobic power,' said Dr Darren McGuire, who led the research. He added: 'Firstly, 20 days of bed rest - the ultimate sedentary state - in these subjects when they were 20 had a more profound negative impact on their cardiovascular fitness than did 30 years of ageing.

'Secondly, a relatively modest intensity of training was able to reverse 100 per cent of the loss of cardiovascular capacity, returning the group to their 1966 baseline levels of aerobic power.'

Among the middle aged devotees of jogging is former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

The study concluded that even an older person who had failed to maintain fitness over the years could benefit from exercise.

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