Exercise is Good for Your Genes



Want to take 10 years off your life?

No, I'm not advocating face-lifts, tummy tucks, or anything else that might involve knives and plastic.

We're talking exercise here. Go figure.

I was on the American Psychological Association's website yesterday and came across a story almost too good to be true. Turns out exercise will not only keep your body fit but it will also keep you DNA in good shape.

While this post is not as psychologically oriented as those that I usually write, the results are so striking that I wanted to share them with you.

In an article in Tuesday's Archive of Internal Medicine, a group of researchers presented the results of a methodologically strong investigation of the effect of physical acitivity on aging. In order to understand their results, we'll pause here for a short biology lesson:


In our body we've got DNA, our genetic material. So far, so good. At the end of these strands of DNA are telomeres -- "caps" that protect the DNA in chromosomes from unraveling. Every time one of your cells divides, a small piece of telomere is consumed.


As you may have guessed, as we get older our telomeres get shorter. In fact, you can find short telomeres in people with diseases such as coronary artery disease, diabetes, and even osteoporosis.

Here's the study: The researchers gave 2401 twins questionnaires about their physical activity level. They also measured their telomere length. The key finding of the study was that the most active participants in the study had telomeres the same length as sedentary individuals up to 10 years younger. The authors write,

This difference suggests that inactive subjects may be biologically older
by 10 years compared with more active subjects.

We all know that exercise is good for your health. What this study demonstrated was that exercise is not only good for your body at the macro level (e.g. heart, lungs, muscles) but it's also good down to the micro level -- your DNA.


If that's not enough to want to make you exercise, I don't know what is.
One more thing. The study looked at exercise done in your leisure time. Interestingly enough, physical activity one does at work doesn't make a difference.


I'm sure you'll be hearing more about this study in the future.


So enough reading -- get out there and exercise!


Reference: Cherkas, L.F., Hunkin, J.L., Kato, B.S., Richards, J.B., Gardner, J.P., Surdulescu, G.L., Kimura, M., Lu, X., Spector, T.D., & Aviv, A. (2008, January 29). The association between physical activity in leisure time and leukocyte telomere length. Archive of Internal Medicine, 168 (2), 154-158.

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