Exercise, which has been proven to protect against a variety of diseases, may be the most powerful anti-aging intervention known to science. Yes, but its beneficial effects are inevitably diminished. The cellular mechanisms underlying the relationship between exercise, fitness and aging are still poorly understood.
In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers at the Joslyn Diabetes Center have investigated the role of one cellular mechanism in improving physical fitness with exercise training and identified one anti-aging intervention that slows age-associated decline in model organisms. findings open the door to new strategies for promoting muscle function during aging.
“Exercise has been widely adopted to improve quality of life and protect against degenerative diseases, and in humans, long-term exercise regimens reduce overall mortality,” said co-corresponding author T. Keith Blackwell, MD, Ph.D. Joslin is Senior Scientist and Section Head of Islet Cell and Regenerative Biology. “Our data identify key mediators of exercise response and starting points for interventions to preserve muscle function during aging.”
Its key mediator is the cycle of fragmentation and repair of mitochondria, specialized structures, or organelles in every cell that produces energy. Disruption of mitochondrial dynamics, the cycle that restores connections between organelles that generate , is associated with the development and progression of chronic diseases. age-related diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
“Our muscles experience this mitochondrial dynamic cycle because they perceive themselves to be experiencing patterns of fatigue and recovery after an exercise session,” says Joslin’s head of immunobiology. said Blackwell, who is also “In this process, the muscle manages the aftermath of metabolic demand from exercise and restores functional capacity.”
Blackwell and colleagues (including co-author Dr. Julio Cesar Batista Ferreira, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo) investigated the role of mitochondrial dynamics during exercise in the model organism C. elegans. We studied microscopic worm species that are frequently used in metabolic and aging studies.
Researchers who documented swimming and crawling in wild-type worms observed a typical age-related decline in strength over the 15 days after the animals reached adulthood. Scientists have also shown significant and gradual changes toward fragmented and/or disorganized mitochondria in aging animals. For example, they observed that in a young nematode on his first day of adulthood, one exercise induced fatigue in him one hour later. The 60-minute session also increased mitochondrial fragmentation in the animal’s muscle cells, but 24 hours was enough for him to restore both performance and performance. Mitochondrial function.
In older (days 5 and 10) worms, animal performance did not return to baseline within 24 hours. Similarly, mitochondria in older animals underwent cycles of fragmentation and repair, but the network reorganization that occurred was reduced compared to younger animals.
Juliane Cruz Campos, lead author and postdoctoral fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center, said: “Aging attenuated the extent to which this occurred and caused a parallel decline in physical fitness. This suggests that mitochondrial dynamics are important for maintaining physical fitness, and that exercise could possibly enhance physical fitness.” suggests.”
In a second set of experiments, scientists allowed wild-type worms to swim for 1 hour a day for 10 consecutive days from the onset of adulthood. The team found that, as in humans, a long-term training program significantly improved the fitness of middle-aged animals on day 10 and alleviated the disturbances in mitochondrial dynamics normally seen during aging. bottom.
Finally, the researchers tested known interventions that extend lifespan for their ability to improve exercise performance during aging. promotes the remodeling of metabolism — showed an increase in physical fitness. It also showed maintenance of exercise performance with aging, but not enhancement. Worms engineered to lack AMPK showed age-related decline in physical fitness and impaired recovery cycles. They also did not enjoy the aging-slowing effects of exercise over their lifetimes.
“An important goal in the aging field is to identify interventions that not only extend lifespan, but also improve health and quality of life,” said Blackwell, who is also a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. “In aging humans, muscle function When exercise Resistance is a major concern leading to substantial morbidity. Our data point to a potentially beneficial intervention point to forestall this decline. Perhaps along with other aspects of aging.It will be of great interest to determine how mitochondrial network plasticity affects physical strength Along with diseases associated with human longevity and aging. ”
For more information:
Juliane Cruz Campos et al. Exercise maintains fitness during aging through AMPK and mitochondrial dynamics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2204750120
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Joslyn Diabetes Center
Quote: Researchers Shed Light on How Exercise Maintains Fitness as We Age (January 5, 2023) from https://phys.org/news/2023-01-physical-aging.html in 2023 Retrieved Jan 5
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