Health
Muscle loss begins undetected at around the age of 29. It is rarely noticed until 40 or older. One reason is that our modern lifestyle has no real need for physical strength. Unlike our ancestors we no longer have to be fit in order to survive. We get along perfectly well, it might seem, with the aid of cars, elevators and even wheel chairs. Many of us might even be tempted to believe that physical fitness (and especially muscular strength) is merely an option and not a priority of our existence.
In contrast, medical science is growing ever more interested in the role skeletal muscle plays in the process of human aging.1
In 1997 an Italian study looked at 84 men and women aged 90 to 106 years of age. The researchers wanted to find out how these individuals had outlived their contemporaries. All possible lifestyle behaviors and influences were considered, including smoking or non-smoking, exercise, diet, marital and economic status. Their conclusion was that the only consistent longevity factor among the subjects was a greater than average muscle mass. 2
In 2007 scientists at the Buck Institute for Age Research tested a hypothesis that sarcopenia (muscle loss) and human aging were closely related. Healthy older subjects performed strength training for 26 weeks while their DNA was studied. Following an analysis of 179 genes, the researchers concluded that functional impairment (weakness) was partially restored by exercising for 6 months. At the same time, the aging process itself, as observed at the genetic level, was “substantially reversed.” 3
On a primal level, in a harsh and demanding environment, muscular weakness signals the probability that the chances for survival are diminishing. We are genetically programmed in this way. If this signal continues too long unabated, cellular damage will eventually destroy the integrity of tissue and bone.
Biochemists understand such physical degeneration (as well as the majority of chronic diseases) as a consequence of metabolic imbalance. What that means, essentially, is that our biochemical pathways are harmed by an inappropriate ratio between the food we eat and the energy we produce.
While physicians tend to regard all such debilities and illnesses as an inevitable result of aging, we may one day learn to approach it differently from the perspective of the Buck Institute study.
Hopefully we will realize that while sarcopenia is usually an age-related condition, it is not a result of the aging process. It is a result of voluntary neglect.
The good news is that we can also voluntarily choose to do the opposite any time we please, and at any age. It is even conceivable that we might reverse physical degeneration itself.
Muscular strength is the prime directive in nature. That’s how our species has managed to survive for centuries. It only seems logical, therefore, that strengthening ourselves is the most reliable path to a balanced metabolism and the longer life that may almost certainly be gained from it.
If our advancing scientific understanding is correct, we may even be able to extend our life, and the quality of life, for almost as long as an appropriate energy balance is maintained.
The ancient world exemplified this conception with the works of Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine”, and the figure for which medical school graduates pledge their Hippocratic Oath.
Interestingly, in lieu of current medical practice, the Hippocratic ideal was to not administer drugs but to rely instead on the healing power of nature. Hippocrates and the schools that followed him, emphasized the importance of activities over which the individual had personal control.
Namely diet and exercise.
Furthermore, and technically, “Food and exercise work together to produce health.” 4
This same concept is being reiterated by the latest research in Bioenergetics and the Mitochondrial Theory of Aging.5
SIDE NOTE: It was rumored that Hippocrates lived to be 110.
ADDENDUM
One of our ex U.S. presidents made an off-handed remark to the press regarding his poor lifestyle practices. He said that he didn’t exercise because he didn’t want to “wear out the machine.”
First of all, human physiology cannot be compared to a mechanical apparatus.
Secondly, the body does not “wear out” from physical work. Although some parts of the anatomy, such as joints and tendons, can become worn and damaged by the wrong kinds of activities, the basic over-riding response to “pure” exercise is one of renewal and extended vitality.
Even if we would prefer to take it easy, we really can’t afford it, because work or the production of energy is an essential restorative factor for all our physiological systems. Hard work also prevents, or at least minimizes, the havoc (disease) that would occur otherwise.
When we consider exercising, this is the message we should appreciate the most.
NOTES
1. Muscle Mass Index as a Predictor of Longevity in Older Adults, P. Srikanthan, A. S. Karlamangia, Division of Endocrinology, Division of Geriatrics, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California 2014.
2. Determinants of Functional Status in Healthy Italian Nonagenarians and Centenarians: A Comprehensive Functional Assessment by the Instruments of Geriatric Practice, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 45, no.10 pp 1196-1202, October 1997
3. Resistance Exercise Reverses Aging in Human Skeletal Muscle, Simon Melov et al. Buck Institute for Age Research, McMaster University, Department of Pediatrics and Medicine, Center for Genetics, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, 2007
4. Hippocrates, William Heinemann, 1953
5. Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine, the Key to Understanding Disease, Chronic Illness, Aging, and Life Itself. Lee Know, ND, 2018