Exercise may be the best anti-ageing pill
- 10 October 2014 by Clare Wilson
- Magazine issue 2990. Subscribe and save
- For similar stories, visit the Sport Topic Guide
IT COULD be the biggest killer you've never heard of: the weakening and loss of muscle that happens as we get older.
Muscle loss is no longer seen as just a side effect of disease and frailty – it's also a prime cause. As well as contributing to falls, muscle loss has serious knock-on effects on metabolism (see "Life-saving muscle"). In future, muscle-boosting drugs could aid those unable to maintain muscle mass through exercise such as weight training. Although researchers stress this isn't about bodybuilding, but keeping muscles in your limbs at a healthy level.
Muscle loss, also known as sarcopenia, is increasingly being seen as an important facet of ageing, according to several speakers at a conference on longevity drugs held in Basel, Switzerland, last month. "Treatments will eventually get into the market," said Dan Perry of the patient lobby groupAlliance for Aging Research.
However, the mechanisms behind muscle ageing are still poorly understood – although new research suggests it involves damage from free radicals./.../
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