Forget expensive anti-aging creams! Canadian scientists have discovered that regular physical exercise may be the key to reversing the aging process of the skin.
Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario have found that in mice and humans, exercise has a beneficial effect on skin aging.
Their first study was conducted on mice. Scientists deprived a group of rodents of their exercise wheel. They found that these control animals became weak, became ill, and also became bald or gray.
In contrast, rodents that were able to continue exercising on their wheels were healthier, with hearts, brains, and reproductive organs remaining healthy. They also kept a beautiful coat that never turned gray.
Sport slows down the phenomenon of aging
Encouraged by these results, the team of researchers continued to study this phenomenon but on a group of 29 volunteers, men and women aged 20 to 84 years.
Half of the participants were invited to participate in at least three hours of exercise per week while the other group remained mostly sedentary.
All the volunteers yielded a patch of skin from their buttocks, an area very rarely exposed to the harmful effects of the sun for a biopsy.
Athletes over 40 had skin that was twenty years younger than sedentary people of the same age. “I don’t mean to be over the top, but the results on the skin are truly remarkable to see,” says Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, a sports medicine physician and chief of the Neuromuscular Diseases and Neurometabolic Disorders Department at McMaster University who oversaw the study. “And if the sport seems to slow down the aging of the skin, it would also be able to reverse this process”.
Sport reverses the phenomenon of aging
The last part of the research focused on a control group of 65 years old non-athletic, but who has been on a fitness regimen for three months.
When the researchers compared the quality of their skin, they found that both the inner and outer layers of the skin resembled that of a 20 to 40 year old individual.
“A group of proteins called myokines (IL-15) secreted by muscle cells and diffused in the body are found, in the event of physical exercise, at 50% higher concentrations and could exert this anti-aging effect” explains the searcher.
Even though the study was conducted on a small sample and further research is needed, these results are encouraging and once again validate the health benefits of physical activity.
