Feeling too lazy to go to the gym? New aging research might change your mind - especially if you love cake and French fries.
Living a sedentary lifestyle and eating unhealthily increases the risk of disease because it speeds the biological processes of aging. However, exercise can help protect against the harmful consequences of unhealthy diets on a cellular level, according to a new study on laboratory mice.
The study, conducted at the Mayo Clinic, revealed that exercise helps prevent diabetes-like symptoms by decreasing the effects of an unhealthy diet as well as levels of premature senescent cell accumulation. Researchers explain that senescent cells, which are normal cells that stop dividing, increase the risk of age-related disease and conditions.
"We think at both a biological level and a clinical level, poor nutrition choices and inactive lifestyles do accelerate aging," said senior study author Nathan LeBrasseur, director of the Center on Aging's Healthy and Independent Living Program, according to a news release. "So now we've shown this in very fine detail at a cellular level, and we can see it clinically. And people need to remember that even though you don't have the diagnosis of diabetes or the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease or the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease today when you're in midlife, the biology underlying those processes is hard at work."
The study involved mice that were split into three diet groups: normal, healthy and fast food. Mice in the "fast food" group were put on a diet containing high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol as well as sugar-sweetened beverages.
Study analysis revealed that mice on the fast food diet showed a substantial number of harmful physical changes. One change was that their fat mass had increased by nearly 300 percent over the course of about four months of being on the fast food diet. Further examination revealed that most of the fat accumulated around the midsection, which has previously been associated with various obesity-related diseases.
It wasn't all bad news for mice on the fast food diet. Once introduced to exercise, mice on the fast food diet showed various health improvements and were protected from the accumulation of weight, fat mass and as senescent cells. While mice on the healthy diet also benefited from exercise, those on the fast food diet reaped the most benefits.
"Some of us believe that aging is just something that happens to all of us and it's just a predestined fate, and by the time I turn 65 or 70 or 80, I will have Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis," said LeBrasseur.
"And this clearly shows the importance of modifiable factors so healthy diet, and even more so, just the importance of regular physical activity. So that doesn't mean that we need to be marathon runners, but we need to find ways to increase our habitual activity levels to stay healthy and prevent processes that drive aging and aging-related diseases," he concluded.
The findings were published in the journal Diabetes.
