Proper Exercise Can Reverse Damage To An Aging Heart

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Living healthy and disease or sickness-free takes a lot of determination and personal discipline. Apart from living clean and healthy, one has to indulge in regular fitness exercises to keep body and mind hale and hearty.

A sedentary lifestyle has so many negative effects on the human body as we age. Exercises keep us fit and help keep a lot of our body organs functioning at optimum level, and also help our metabolism stay on track.

However, for people who were apparently too busy for exercises and led a seemingly sedentary lifestyle, all hope is not lost for you.

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Old age usually translates to weakness in the body, and weakness of our major body organs – chief of which is; the heart.

However, a new study conducted by scientists at UT Southwestern and Texas Health Resources, has revealed that the damage caused to a person’s ageing heart due to an earlier sedentary lifestyle can successfully be reversed via the right proportion of exercise.

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Study

The study which was carried out for a duration of two years, and it was discovered that exercising and training which commences before the age of 65, and is done four to five times a week can improve a person’s heart elasticity significantly.

Previous studies have shown that a sedentary lifestyle can stiffen the heart’s ventricular muscles, but the new study follows on from that early research.

Benjamin Levine, a senior author on the latest study explained that;

"When the muscle stiffens, you get high pressure and the heart chamber doesn't fill as well with blood. In its most severe form, blood can back up into the lungs. That's when heart failure develops."

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Procedure

50 subjects participated in the experiment for two years. The subjects were between the ages of 45 and 64 years. The participants were divided into two groups. On half were restricted to intense and directed regime of exercises, while the other half were conditioned to act as a control group undertaking balance training and yoga.

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Result

After two years of training, the groups demonstrated distinctive success in regaining heart elasticity levels. The ventricular muscle elasticity in the subjects also saw over 25 percent improvements and there was an improvement of about 18 percent in the maximum level of oxygen intake when compared to control.

The UT Southwestern research team revealed that based on earlier works and survey, the heart-improving benefits of the exercises would be reaped if carried out or performed for about four or five times every week.

The verdict was reached on account of previous studies which suggested that exercising for only two or three times a week was not enough to achieve and benefit fully from the whole procedure.

Also notable from the study, was the fact that the cardiac improvements were not noticeable among subjects who started exercising after 65 years of age. This suggests that the exercise-related elasticity window was between the ages of 45 and 64.

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Conclusion

Benjamin Levine who co-authored the study stated that;
"Based on a series of studies performed by our team over the past five years, this 'dose' of exercise has become my prescription for life. I think people should be able to do this as part of their personal hygiene – just like brushing your teeth and taking a shower."

Eventually conclusions drawn from the research was that exercise regime involving four to five sessions every week should consist of

• one high-intensity aerobic session
• one or two strength training sessions
• one or two moderately intense sessions, which should involve the subject becoming just “a little short of breath”

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Reference:

• Reversing damage from heart aging
• Exercise aging heart
• Heart-health
• Sci-tech-today

Study: Paper

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