RESEARCH--Cut your risk of early death by 35 percent.

A new medical study of 8,000 middle-aged and older adults found that replacing a half-hour of sitting with 30 minutes of vigorous exercise cuts the risk of early death by about 35 percent. If the exercise is light, the risk reduction is only 17 percent.

Still, any movement is better than none in a world where so many of us sit so long, at times continuously. It's particularly important to break up continuous sitting. The study authors, from Columbia University, had previously found that moving about for 1-2 minutes every half-hour helps. 

So, set a timer at 30-minutes to remind yourself. Then walk up and down the stairs a bit, and do some squats and push-ups. Or whatever.

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The study subjects had an average age of 45, and wore activity monitors to record their sitting and movement patterns. The paper was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology with the title, "Potential Effects of Replacing Sedentary Time With Short Sedentary Bouts or Physical Activity on Mortality: A National Cohort Study."

Link to press release
Link to scientific abstract

RESEARCH--For telomere health, aerobic training beats strength training

Having grown up mainly concerned about our cholesterol and blood pressure (and weekly mileage total, of course), many of us have trouble absorbing some of the newer health-fitness markers. One of those is telomeres--the tough little strands, sometimes compared to the plastic tips on shoelaces--at the end of chromosomes. 

Deteriorating telomeres are a bad thing, a sign of aging and disease. Anything that helps to maintain telomere health is essentially a good thing. An anti-aging thing. Previous research has shown that exercise protects telomeres and helps them regenerate. That's a very good thing.

Now German investigators have shown for the first time that endurance aerobic training and interval training promote telomere health, while strength training does not. This doesn't mean you should abandon strength training; you shouldn't. It has many benefits. Among them: It helps protect you from falls.

But as far as total health and anti-aging vigor go, it appears that endurance training beats strength training. As the German scientists point out, early homo probably depended more on running (and even sprinting) for survival than on lifting heavy objects. In their paper, the authors conclude: "Our data support ESC [European Society of Cardiologists] current guideline that resistance exercise should be complimentary to endurance training rather than a substitute."

In the actual prospective, randomized, controlled trial reported in the European Heart Journal, it was shown that endurance training (3 x 45 minutes/week) and interval training (3 x 45/wk) improved markers of telomere health while circuit weight training (3 x 45/week) did not.

RESEARCH: New data supports our exercise habit, especially for racers

Believe it or not, some doctors and scientists are trying to keep up with us. They’re looking for data and explanations to understand why so many Lifetime Runners enjoy such outstanding health and vigor.

In particular, a group at Ball State University is near the forefront. They are continuing the pioneer work that Dr. David Costill first began there in the 1960s. I was a guinea pig in his lab then. It hurt--a muscle biopsy amounts to a sharp stabbing! And consecutive days of hard, two-hour runs on a treadmills are … just hard.

In a new paper, Scott Trappe and Ball State colleagues investigated the cardiovascular and muscle health of folks just like us. Trappe called them

10 things you need to know about the new national exercise guidelines

You already know a lot. But the new guidelines extend the benefits of regular physical activity to prevention of more cancers and other illnesses. Here are the 10 most important new findings.

1. The second edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans provides evidence-based recommendations for adults and youth ages 3 through 17 to safely get the physical activity they need to stay healthy. There are new key guidelines for children ages 3 through 5 and updated guidelines for youth ages 6 through 17, adults, older adults, women during pregnancy and the postpartum period, adults with chronic health conditions, and adults with disabilities.
2. The new key guidelines for children ages 3 through 5 state that preschool-aged children should be active throughout the day to enhance growth and development. Adults caring for children this age should encourage active play (light, moderate, or vigorous intensity) and aim for at least 3 hours per day.
3. The recommended amount of physical activity for youth ages 6 through 17 is the same. Each day, youth ages 6 through 17 need at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity to attain the most health benefits from physical activity. Most activity can be aerobic, like

RESEARCH--Exercise Improves Gut Bacteria

by Dr. Gabe Mirkin

Many studies show that exercise helps to prevent heart attacks, and it may do so by changing the bacteria in your colon. A recent study from Finland shows that exercising for just six weeks, without any additional change in diet or lifestyle, can increase healthful anti-inflammatory bacteria (Akkermansia) and reduce harmful inflammation-promoting Proteobacteria in your colon (Front Microbiol, October 3, 2018).

In this study, 17 sedentary and overweight women started a heart-rate-regulated exercise program on stationary bicycles for three training sessions per week. After six weeks, stool cultures showed healthful colon bacteria changes, even though the subjects did not lose any weight. There was also a significant reduction in phospholipids and cholesterol in VLDL cholesterol, which is believed to help prevent heart attacks because VLDL cholesterol is converted into the harmful LDL cholesterol that helps to form plaques in your arteries. Exercise also decreased Vascular Adhesion Protein-1, a measure of inflammation that causes plaques to form in arteries and break off to cause heart attacks.

Exercise Promotes Good Gut Bacteria

Two previous studies, one in

RESEARCH--Impressive New Study Offers Best Evidence Yet For High-Fitness Lifestyle

As fitness increases, mortality risk decreases.
The benefit does not appear to "bottom out"
at any point. More fitness is better.

An impressive new study from the Cleveland Clinic provides the best evidence yet for a high-fitness lifestyle. It is considered more authoritative than other similar studies linking exercise and reduced mortality because it is based on actual treadmill-testing data and not questionnaires that ask, "How much do you exercise?

The study is also unique for its focus on older subjects, including those at the extreme high end of cardiovascular fitness (termed “elites”). Researchers concluded that there is no upper limit to the benefits of fitness, and that high-level fitness is particularly beneficial to those 70 and older.

The study is open-access, meaning you can read it free here:

Below, LifetimeRunning.net briefly summarizes several of the key points.

*** The study looked at 122,000 patients who had a treadmill stress test at the Cleveland Clinic. They were divided into five fitness groups based on their treadmill results: low, average, above average, high, and elite (above the 97.6th percentile). Subjects were followed for the next 8.4 years, with 13,637 deaths during that time.

*** Subjects in the highest (“elite”) fitness quintile had an 80 percent lower risk of mortality than those in the lowest fitness quintile.

*** Elite subjects had a 23 percent lower mortality risk than even those in the high-fit group.

*** “Importantly, there was no upper limit of benefit of increased aerobic fitness.”

*** “There was no evidence to suggest relative harm associated with extreme levels of fitness.”

*** “Achieving and maintaining very high levels of aerobic fitness may be particularly important in patients older than 70 and those with hypertension.”

RESEARCH--A New Look At Age Graded Performances

Ed Whitlock ran a 2:54 marathon at age 73,
and a 3:56 at 85.

Many Lifetime Runners are accustomed to evaluating their race times with the widely-used and excellent World Masters Association age-graded system. There are many versions of this calculator around the web, and they are sometimes included in computerized road-race results.

There is another less-well-known system, created by Ray Fair, a retired Yale University economist who has run 39 of 41 New Haven 20K road races, missing the event only when ill or injured.  Fair, 75, recently updated his system--an update covered by the New York Times.  An abstract of his new paper, published by The Review of Economics and Statistics,  is available here.

The Fair system differs little from the WMA calculator--it’s just a matter of how deep

RESEARCH--Don't Be "Skinny Fat." Do Your Strength Training

(8-18) Many longtime runners are justifiably proud of their trim bodies. After all, we live in an "obesity crisis" era, and thousands of studies have proven the health benefits of a low to modest body weight vs. excess weight. Thin is good.

But "skinny fat" isn't. The subject has been getting a lot of coverage in recent days due to a new study in the British Journal of Nutrition. The research project tracked the BMI and WHR (waist-hip ratio) of more than 5000 Irish residents over age 60. The two measures--BMI and WHR--were then associated with various health risks. WHR is, loosely speaking, a measure of "belly fat" or excess visceral fat around the middle, also termed "central adiposity."

The paper concluded that belly fat was

RESEARCH--Exercising 4 To 5 Times A Week Pays Big Dividends In Late-Life Heart Health

(7-18) The Phys Ed column in today's New York Times includes a good summary of recent research by Dallas exercise physiologist Ben Levine. (His wife happens to be a lifetime runner.) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/well/exercise-makes-the-aging-heart-more-youthful.html

The basic conclusion: A lifetime of regular moderate to vigorous exercise, like 4 or 5 times a week, pays big heart dividends in later life. In particular, it increases arterial elasticity--the opposite of stiff arteries. 

Individuals who exercise regularly through midlife get the biggest payoff in later life. But there are fitness benefits even for those who are sedentary for much of their life before beginning a regular exercise program. In other words, it's never too late to start.

Levine also draws a distinction between a couple of leisurely walks a week and four to five real workouts. The former might not get the job done. Try to exercise on more days per week than you don't exercise.

Here are links to Levine's studies in PubMed: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25236519 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29311053 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29781119  

RESEARCH: Exercise Improves Cognition, Fitness, Endurance, Balance Of Subjects Over 60

(8-18) A recent study looked at the effect of exercise training on cognition, fitness, muscle endurance, and balance of subjects over 60 with mild cognitive impairment. The study used a randomized, controlled protocol (RCT), considered to be the "gold standard" for such research.

The authors concluded that the (very moderate) exercise training program "improved cognitive function, muscle endurance, aerobic conditioning, and balance in older adults with mild cognitive impairment."

The paper was published in the Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy. Click here for more.