According to a new study, men who regularly exercise after the age of 40 experience the same health benefits to those who exercise even before age 30.
Endurance exercise improved heart health among senior men who are in good shape, regardless of what age they their fitness regimen started.
Researchers analyzed the heart health of 40 men from ages 55 to 70, who had good health and no risk for CVD (cardiovascular disease). Lead author or the study David Matelot and his team divided the participants based on whether and what age they started doing over two hours of endurance training or any intense exercise per week. Matelot is from the Inserm 1099 unit in Rennes at the 2014 EuroPRevent congress.
Ten of the participants had not completed over two hours of running or cycling per week before. Among the thirty participants who did regular intense exercise, 16 of them started exercising before the age of 30 while 14 of them started after their 40th birthdays. The participants either ran or cycled regularly.
The men who started before 30 years of age had been exercising for about 39 years, starting at 22 years old. Those who started at age 40 had been exercising for 18 years, starting at 48 years old. Each participant was observed by echocardiography while resting, maximal and submaximal exercise testing and heart rate assessment.
The results showed not much difference between the heart rates of the participants who trained despite their age. The heart rates of those who did not train were higher while those who regularly exercise showed better heart performance and took high levels of oxygen.
The echocardiography also showed that both men who started exercise before their 30s and after their 40s had bigger left ventricle and atria than those who did not train. The non-trainers also showed much thicker vessel walls than those who exercised. It appears that cardiac remodeling is different between the trained and non-trained participants. The left ventricle's ability to fill the heart with blood when relaxed and other heart rate measures showed better results in the trained subjects than in non-trained ones.
"Endurance training is also beneficial for bone density, for muscle mass, for oxidative stress. And these benefits are known to be greater if training was started early in life," Matelot said. The researchers concluded that biological changes are linked with age but even at 40 years old, the heart can still benefit from endurance exercise. These benefits include heart disease prevention and better memory.
