Fitness

Exercise: One Way It May Help You Live Longer

The relationship between physical activity and telomere length

(Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash)

Telomeres are minute bits of DNA that represent the ends of chromosomes. I often share with my patients that telomeres are like the little plastic aglets found on the ends of your shoelaces. Telomeres serve multiple purposes, including preventing our DNA from fraying or unraveling and preventing the DNA ends from entangling with one another.

Long telomeres, long life

Longer telomeres appear to be associated with longer life. Today we explore the relationship between physical activity such as exercise and telomere length.

We begin with the premise that as we age, our telomeres naturally shorten. Unfortunately, this means that our DNA cannot remain in good enough shape to allow for optimal cell division. Now, I should offer that whether shorter telomeres cause aging or vice versa remains unclear.

More exercise appears to be associated with longer telomeres. (Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash)

A bit of background

Historically, there has been much research illustrating a correlation between exercise and telomere length. Some studies…