Does exercise combat ageing?
"It might sound obvious, but it does indeed keeps your body healthy for longer. As a 60-year-old, you’ll never be able to run faster than a 20-year-old, but you can significantly delay the effects of ageing by exercising regularly in combination with eating healthily. It prevents age-related diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular diseases from occurring as quickly. So, exercise really does help you age in a healthy way."
What happens in your body when you exercise?
"After a meal, your blood sugar levels rise, and your body has to work to bring them back into balance. Your pancreas produces insulin, which ensures that the sugars from your food are absorbed into your muscle tissue and distributed throughout your body. Exercise causes the sugars from your meal to be absorbed more quickly, independent of insulin. This prevents blood sugar levels from staying too high for too long, which can lead to diabetes.
"We also know that when you exercise, your heart can relax better between beats. This keeps your blood vessels healthy and prevents them from getting clogged up.
"Exercise can also have a real impact mentally. When you move, various substances – like the hormone irisin – travel from your muscles through your blood to your brain, improving your ability to think. It has a positive effect on brain functions, reduces depressive thoughts and improves focus."
And yet still we all move too little. What problems can be caused by not moving enough?
"They say sitting is the new smoking. And research backs up how bad inactivity is for people. If you move too little and rely solely on your body's insulin production, your muscle cells become less sensitive to insulin, leading to type 2 diabetes. We used to think this disease was mainly caused by obesity. Now we know that even with a healthy diet, you can develop diabetes due to lack of activity.
"Usually, the energy you get from eating is equal to what you expend. If you move less, you expend less energy, which gets stored in your muscle cells. The food can't be processed properly, and the energy is converted into fat. All sorts of metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and arteriosclerosis, can then occur. The structure of your heart also changes and work less well if you don't move. Plus, mental health issues can get worse with too little exercise.
"In the Netherlands, we're actually doing quite well. We bike a lot, eat relatively healthily, and have a moderate climate that allows for outdoor sports. But if you compare the situation now with 30 years ago, you can see that people here have also started moving a lot less."
How much should you move to experience long-term health benefits?
"As a general rule, 10,000 steps per day is a healthy yardstick. Try to stay active throughout the day, not just for a few hours in the morning. For the average person, a combination of strength training and endurance training is good. Strength training keeps your muscles large and strong, counteracting signs of ageing like muscle loss. Endurance sports help you stay energetic and have positive effects on your brain functions and sleep."
Rob Wüst is assistant professor movement sciences. His primary research interest lies in how people can live healthier through movement.
