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July 24, 2008Exercise could be the heart's fountain of youth |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but endurance exercise seems to make it younger. According to a study conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, older people who did endurance exercise training for about a year ended up with metabolically much younger hearts. The researchers measured heart metabolism in sedentary older people both at rest and during administration of dobutamine, a drug that makes the heart race as if a person were exercising vigorously. At the start of the study, they found that in response to the increased energy demands produced by dobutamine, the hearts of the study subjects didn't increase their uptake of energy in the form of glucose (blood sugar). But after endurance exercise training --- which involved walking, running or cycling exercises three to five days a week for about an hour per session --- the participants' hearts doubled their glucose uptake during high-energy demand, just as younger hearts do. Soto explains that if heart muscle doesn't take in glucose in response to increased energy needs, it goes into an energy-deprived state, which may raise the risk of heart attack. But the heart uses both glucose and fatty acids for energy. And when the researchers looked at fatty acid metabolism, they found a striking difference in the results of exercise training between women and men. The study is described in an article that appeared in advance online publication on June 20, 2008 in the American Journal of Physiology. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked third in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
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