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New research reveals surprising facts about our
changing bodies. You Can Stop ''Normal'' Aging
By Dr. Henry S. Lodge
Published: March 18
From your body's point of
view, "normal" aging isn't normal at all. It's a choice you
make by the way you live your life. The other choice is to
tell your cells to grow-to build a strong, vibrant body and
mind.
Let's have a look at standard
American aging. Barbara D. had a baby when she was 34, gave
up exercise and gained 50 pounds. Exhausted and depressed,
Barbara thought youth, energy and optimism were all in her
rearview mirror. Jon M., 55, had fallen even farther down
the slippery slope. He was stuck in the corporate world of
stress, long hours and doughnuts. At 255 pounds, he had
knees that hurt and a back that ached. He developed high
blood pressure and eventually diabetes. Life was looking
grim.
Jon and Barbara weren't
getting old; they had let their bodies decay. Most aging is
just the dry rot we program into our cells by sedentary
living, junk food and stress. Yes, we do have to get old,
and ultimately we do have to die. But our bodies are
designed to age slowly and remarkably well. Most of what we
see and fear is decay, and decay is only one choice. Growth
is the other.
After two years of misery,
Barbara started exercising and is now in the best shape of
her life. She just finished a sprint triathlon and, at 37,
feels like she is 20. Jon started eating better and
exercising too-slowly at first, but he stuck with it. He has
since lost 50 pounds, the pain in his knees and back has
disappeared, and his diabetes is gone. Today, Jon is 60 and
living his life in the body of a healthy 30-year-old. He
will die one day, but he is likely to live like a young man
until he gets there.
The hard reality of our biology is that we are built to
move.
Exercise is the master signaling system that tells our cells
to grow instead of fade. When we exercise, that process of
growth spreads throughout every cell in our bodies, making
us functionally younger. Not a little bit younger-a lot
younger. True biological aging is a surprisingly slow and
graceful process. You can live out your life in a powerful,
healthy body if you are willing to put in the work.
Let's take a step back to see
how exercise works at the cellular level. Your body is made
up of trillions of cells that live mostly for a few weeks or
months, die and are replaced by new cells in an endless
cycle. For example, your taste buds live only a few hours,
white blood cells live 10 days, and your muscle cells live
about three months. Even your bones dissolve and are
replaced, over and over again. A few key stem cells in each
organ and your brain cells are the only ones that stick
around for the duration. All of your other cells are in a
constant state of renewal.
You replace about 1% of
your cells every day. That means 1% of your body is
brand-new today, and you will get another 1% tomorrow. Think
of it as getting a whole new body every three months. It's
not entirely accurate, but it's pretty close. Viewed that
way, you are walking around in a body that is brand-new
since Christmas-new lungs, new liver, new muscles, new skin.
Look down at your legs and realize that you are going to
have new ones by the Fourth of July. Whether that body is
functionally younger or older is a choice you make by how
you live.
You choose whether those new
cells come in stronger or weaker. You choose whether they
grow or decay each day from then on. Your cells don't care
which choice you make. They just follow the directions you
send. Exercise, and your cells get stronger; sit down, and
they decay.
This whole system evolved
over billions of years out in nature, where all animals
face two great cellular challenges: The first is to grow
strong, fast and fit in the spring, when food abounds and
there are calories to fuel hungry muscles, bones and brains.
The second is to decay as fast as possible in the winter,
when calories disappear and surviving starvation is the key
to life. You would think that food is the controlling signal
for this, but it's not. Motion controls your system.
Though we've moved indoors
and left that life behind, our cells still think we're
living out on the savannah, struggling to stay alive each
day. There are no microwaves or supermarkets in nature. If
you want to eat, you have to hunt or forage every single
day. That
movement is a signal that it's time to grow. So, when you
exercise, your muscles release specific substances that
travel throughout your bloodstream, telling your cells to
grow. Sedentary muscles, on the other hand, let out a
steady trickle of chemicals that whisper to every cell to
decay, day after day after day.
Men like Jon, who go from
sedentary to fit, cut their risk of dying from a heart
attack by 75% over five years. Women cut their risk by
80%-and heart attacks are the largest single killer of
women. Both men and women can double their leg strength with
three months of exercise, and most of us can double it again
in another three months. This is true whether you're in your
30s or your 90s. It's not a miracle or a mystery. It's your
biology, and you're in charge.
The other master signal
to our cells-equal and, in some respects, even more
important than exercise-is emotion. One of the most
fascinating revelations of the last decade is that emotions
change our cells through the same molecular pathways as
exercise. Anger, stress and loneliness are signals for
"starvation" and chronic danger. They "melt" our bodies as
surely as sedentary living. Optimism, love and community
trigger the process of growth, building our bodies, hearts
and minds.
Men who have a heart attack
and come home to a family are four times less likely to die
of a second heart attack. Women battling heart disease or
cancer do better in direct proportion to the number of close
friends and relatives they have. Babies in the ICU who are
touched more often are more likely to survive. Everywhere
you look, you see the role of emotion in our biology. Like
exercise, it's a choice.
It's hard to exercise every
day. And with our busy lives, it's even harder to find the
time and energy to maintain relationships and build
communities. But it's worth it when you consider the
alternative.
Go for a walk or a run,
and think about it. Deep in our cells, down at the level of
molecular genetics, we are wired to
exercise
and to care. We're beginning to wake up to that as a nation,
but you might not want to wait. You might want to join
Barbara, Jon and millions of others and change your life.
Start today. Your cells are listening.
Dr. Henry S. Lodge is
on the faculty of Columbia Medical School and is co-author
of "Younger Next Year" (Workman).
United Health Care United
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