According to a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the cells of physically active people, who engage in regular exercise look younger on a molecular level than those of less active people.

“These data suggest that the act of exercising may actually protect the body against the aging process,” said Tim D. Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College in Londonand leader of this new medical research.

“It’s another jigsaw piece in trying to understand why exercise is important in longevity,” said L. Stephen Coles, who studies aging at the University of California at Los Angeles. But Coles and others stressed that much more research is needed to definitively establish a causal relationship between exercise and aging.

Researches studied over 2,400 British twins and found that exercise appears to slow the shriveling of the protective tips on bundles of genes inside cells. This slowing could possibly diminish the frailty associated with aging. While most people know the proven benefits of exercise (reducing risk of heart disease, cancer and other diseases), this study explores the scientific cause behind these benefits.. Spector and his colleagues examined structures known as “telomeres” inside cells.

Telomeres are found on the end of chromosomes, the structures that carry genes. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When the telomeres are too short, the cell stops dividing. The aging process, scientists believe, occurs as more and more cells are unable to divide and then die.

By examining the telomeres from white blood cells collected from the twins, scientists sought a relationship between the telomere length and the amount of exercise each participant got in their spare time over a 10-year period. People who had a moderate amount of exercise - 100 minutes a week - had telomere that were comparable to someone about five or six years younger. Those exercised most appeared to be nine years younger than those who did little to none.

“There was a gradient,” Spector said. “As the amount of exercise increased, the telomere length increased.”

While the research is compelling, much more research is needed. “It’s a fairly strong and interesting association,” said Jack M. Guralnik of the National Institute on Aging, who wrote an editorial accompanying the research. “But we have to interpret this with caution. People who choose to exercise are different in many ways from people who don’t exercise. It’s always difficult from these observational studies to determine whether it’s the exercise that’s having the effects.

“We checked to make sure it wasn’t due to obesity or smoking or marital status and everything else we could think of,” Spector said. “We still found this marked effect.” The research even compared the least and most active twins with each other, and they found four years’ difference in their telomeres, “We wanted to see if we could account for the effect of genes,” he said.

Spector hopes the research will still encourage people to exercise for longer life and better health.

“Hopefully when clinicians are advising patients, this could be another reason to promote physical activity,” Spector said. “It may slow down the aging process, and people may actually look and feel younger!”

For family caregivers, getting loved ones to exercise can be difficult, but exercise at any age can help their health and longevity. Make sure to talk to your loved one’s physician and discuss any exercise program before you start it.

Filed under: Health & Safety, Research