Exercise unlocks Stem Cells in your Muscles!

Posted on March 1, 2011 at 5:47 am

We’ve all read, heard and seen enough information to know that regular exercise is essential for a healthy body. What you might not know is that researchers have been busily seeking ways to increase longevity of muscle groups, to delay the muscle shrinkage that comes with aging and sedentary lifestyle.

Dafna Benayahu, of the Tel Aviv University in Israel, and his research colleagues studied a rat population in the lab to learn whether endurance exercise would increase the number of muscle stem cells, which are cells that decline as humans age, leading to muscle weakness in the elderly.

They compared the performance of rats of different ages and sexes, and found that the number of muscle stem cells (called satellite cells) increased after the rats ran on a treadmill for 20 minutes a day over a 13-week period.

The younger rats showed a 20% to 35% increase in the average number of stem cells per muscle fiber retained, but the older rats benefited even more, with a 33% to 47% increase in stem cells!

Further, the team found that endurance exercise improved the levels of “spontaneous locomotion.” Spontaneous locomotion is simply the urge to get up and move around and possibly even exercise as opposed to being more sedentary, which is common in the elderly.

The researchers are hopeful that this study can help them identify new ways to increase muscle stem cells in humans that would help maintain more muscle strength as we age.

To your health & beauty,
Dr. Paul LoVerme