Rethinking Exercise: How Too Much Can Speed Up Aging, According to Finnish Study
Recent research from the University of Jyvaskyla suggests excessive exercise may accelerate biological aging, while moderate activity is linked to better health outcomes, emphasizing lifestyle factors over exercise alone.
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Recent research from the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland has challenged the conventional wisdom that regular exercise is essential for longevity. Over a 45-year study involving more than 11,000 Finnish twins, findings indicated that excessive physical activity might not only fail to extend lifespan but could also accelerate biological aging. Participants were categorized into four groups based on their activity levels: sedentary, moderately active, active, and highly active. While initially, the least active group showed a 20% higher mortality risk, this difference diminished when accounting for lifestyle factors like education and body mass index. Notably, those engaging in extreme levels of physical activity were found to be biologically older by an average of 1.8 years compared to those with moderate exercise habits. This suggests that the health benefits associated with physical activity may be more related to overall lifestyle rather than exercise alone. Dr. George Savva highlighted the study's robust design but noted the need to consider how physical activity impacts factors like BMI. The World Health Organization continues to recommend 150 to 300 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous exercise weekly as a guideline for healthy living.
- Excessive exercise may accelerate biological aging, according to new research.
- The study involved over 11,000 Finnish twins over a 45-year period.
- Moderate exercise is linked to better health outcomes than extreme physical activity.
- Lifestyle factors significantly influence the relationship between exercise and longevity.
- The World Health Organization recommends specific weekly exercise guidelines for adults.
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15 commentsThere was actually a youtube video about this very topic that I think is pretty good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic4nUxMYBRk
The takeaway is: If you are not training for marathons or the tour de france you are probably not overexercising to the point of causing negative health outcomes
"Although biological ageing was accelerated in sedentary and highly active classes, after adjusting for other lifestyle-related factors, the associations mainly attenuated."
"Conclusion: Being active may reflect a healthy phenotype instead of causally reducing mortality."
Therefore, the paper isn't supporting the article claim that too much exercise is speeding up aging, rather, that this is dominated by genetics.
The key word is: excessive.
Furthmore, exercise isn't only about quantity (i.e., lifespan), it's about quality (i.e., avoiding health issue compromise quality of life).
Given the choice, running an extra mile is likely a wiser default than drinking an extra Coke.
So moderate exercise is the optimal. Not too much or too little. But how does one know what is too much? It is different for different people.
If it’s at the extreme end of exercise, chances are the effect can be explained mostly by injury. Especially once someone is elderly, an injury that puts them out of commission for months is often the beginning of the end.
After 40 my rule of thumb is never do intense exercise two days in a row. Hopefully it helps.
Highly Active (C5) appears to be 7-8 metabolic equivalent (MET) hours a day and Active (C4) is 3-4 hours a day.
8 MET hours would be running for an hour at enough pace to be consuming about 600 calories, assuming your consumption at rest is 75 - please correct me if you understand METs better
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