Keeping Heart Muscle Healthy

Exercise preserves the heart muscles through out old age in comparison to the sedentary lifestyle.

Amplify’d from www.nlm.nih.gov

Exercise preserves, builds heart muscle

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Consistent lifelong exercise preserves heart muscle in the elderly to levels that match or even exceed that of healthy young sedentary people, a surprising finding that underscores the value of regular exercise training, according to a new study.

By contrast, elderly people with a documented history of exercising six to seven times a week throughout adulthood not only kept their heart mass, but built upon it -- having heart masses greater than sedentary healthy adults aged 25 to 34.

"One thing that characterizes the aging process by itself is the loss of muscle mass, particularly skeletal muscle," said Dr. Paul Bhella, a researcher from John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas who presented the study at the conference.

"The data suggest that if we can identify people in middle age, in the 45 to 60 year range, and get them to exercise four to five times a week, this may go a very long way in preventing some of the major heart conditions of old age, including heart failure," said Benjamin Levine of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who headed the study. Read more at www.nlm.nih.gov

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