Want to Exercise Harder? Try Drinking Beet Juice
Proof That Intense Cardio May Help You Live Longer
If you knew that simply adding more cardio to your life would help you live longer, would you work out more?
A new study published in Science Advances
shows that that exercise endurance (a sexy term for intense cardio that
increases your breathing and heart rate) may help keep our telemores(sic) in
tact. Telemores(sic) are the protective “caps” on the ends of our DNA
chromosomes which keep us young.
And just to
underscore this study’s significance, as we age — and with added effects
of stress and disease — our telemores(sic) structures start to break down.
So, finding ways to keep our telemores(sic)long and strong give us a better
chance of living a longer life.
To prove that
exercise could add on years to our life, a research team had ten healthy
and young volunteers cycle for 45 minutes. They found that the amount
of telomere transcripts (which control telemores)(sic) increased in
volunteers post-workout.
The experiment results also support recent theories that exercise and diet (another potential influence on telemores)(sic) could delay or reduce the effects of aging. (Wrinkle prevention? Sign me up!)
If
you're interested in increasing your lifeline, add more endurance to
your workout routine. Endurance exercise includes everything cardio —
from swimming to dancing — at an intense level for extended periods of
time (hello romp session!).
In addition to
longevity, exercise also keeps us sharp as a whip, influencing
everything from our brain’s blood flow to cognitive functioning. In
fact, research
shows that specific cardio strengthens specific mental functions. For
example, ballroom dancing helps with memory, or Tai Chi can help with
problem solving.
If this new research won’t get you to get out there to break a sweat, we don’t know what will.
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