Rethinking Exercise: How Too Much Can Speed Up Aging, According to Finnish Study (2023)

This is a controversial study, apparently what they did to test for how exercise affected aging was they decided to control for &quot;confounding&quot; variables such as high blood pressure, obesity, etc. Except, these aren&#x27;t confounding variables but mediating variables.<p>There was actually a youtube video about this very topic that I think is pretty good:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ic4nUxMYBRk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ic4nUxMYBRk</a><p>The takeaway is: If you are not training for marathons or the tour de france you are probably not overexercising to the point of causing negative health outcomes

The study appears to be misrepresented. From the paper at: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC10274991&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC10274991&#x2F;</a><p>&quot;Although biological ageing was accelerated in sedentary and highly active classes, after adjusting for other lifestyle-related factors, the associations mainly attenuated.&quot;<p>&quot;Conclusion: Being active may reflect a healthy phenotype instead of causally reducing mortality.&quot;<p>Therefore, the paper isn&#x27;t supporting the article claim that too much exercise is speeding up aging, rather, that this is dominated by genetics.

The actual study is here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC10274991&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC10274991&#x2F;</a>

&gt; Their findings, which earned a prestigious sports medicine award in Finland, suggest that excessive physical activity might not only be less beneficial for extending lifespan but could also potentially accelerate aging.<p>The key word is: excessive.<p>Furthmore, exercise isn&#x27;t only about quantity (i.e., lifespan), it&#x27;s about quality (i.e., avoiding health issue compromise quality of life).<p>Given the choice, running an extra mile is likely a wiser default than drinking an extra Coke.

&gt; Further intriguing results showed that those at the extremes of physical activity—either too little or too much—experienced accelerated biological aging.<p>So moderate exercise is the optimal. Not too much or too little. But how does one know what is too much? It is different for different people.

<i>&gt; Further intriguing results showed that those at the extremes of physical activity—either too little or too much—experienced accelerated biological aging.</i><p>If it’s at the extreme end of exercise, chances are the effect can be explained mostly by injury. Especially once someone is elderly, an injury that puts them out of commission for months is often the beginning of the end.

Another factor to consider is that too much exercise can increase the chance of injuries which can lead to long periods of no exercise.<p>After 40 my rule of thumb is never do intense exercise two days in a row. Hopefully it helps.

If I&#x27;ve read it correclty (Table 1 in the report: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC10274991&#x2F;#SD1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;articles&#x2F;PMC10274991&#x2F;#SD1</a>)<p>Highly Active (C5) appears to be 7-8 metabolic equivalent (MET) hours a day and Active (C4) is 3-4 hours a day.<p>8 MET hours would be running for an hour at enough pace to be consuming about 600 calories, assuming your consumption at rest is 75 - please correct me if you understand METs better

I wonder if excessive exercise simply leads to less sleep, thus speeding up aging. If you are trying to run 70 miles a week, hold down a full time job, take care of kids, etc, then you end up stressed out and sleeping less.

Time and time again, we learn that &#x27;your mileage might vary&#x27;. I&#x27;ve found that the best way to live life is to find out what is considered best, and adapt it to you and your body.

Just for some context, the highly active group was doing about 8 MET hours per day, which is the equivalent of jogging for about an hour and a half every day at a 10 min mile.

It seems strange to correct for BMI differences, since a lower BMI is one of the main ways regular exercise is supposed to improve your health.