Fight Aging!

Epidemiological data consistently shows that professional athletes live longer than the rest of the population. Here, researchers compare top tier professional athletes with other athletes, and find that those who succeed in competition appear to show slowed epigenetic aging. If we believe that epigenetic clocks are a decent measure of biological age, and that winning is a decent proxy for degree of physical fitness, then this seems a reasonable outcome, given what is known of the dose-response curve for exercise effects on mortality.

The lifestyle patterns of top athletes are highly disciplined, featuring strict exercise regimens, nutrition plans, and mental preparation, often beginning at a young age. Recently, it was shown that physically active individuals exhibit slowed epigenetic aging and better age-related outcomes. Here, we investigate whether the extreme intensity of physical activity of Olympic champions still has a beneficial effect on epigenetic aging. To test this hypothesis, we examined the epigenetic aging of 59 Hungarian Olympic champions and of the 332 control subjects, 205 were master rowers.

We observed that Olympic champions exhibit slower epigenetic aging, applying seven state-of-the-art epigenetic aging clocks. Additionally, male champions who won any medal within the last 10 years showed slower epigenetic aging compared to other male champions, while female champions exhibited the opposite trend. We also found that wrestlers had higher age acceleration compared to gymnasts, fencers, and water polo players. We identified the top 20 genes that showed the most remarkable difference in promoter methylation between Olympic champions and non-champions. The hypo-methylated genes are involved in synaptic health, glycosylation, metal ion membrane transfer, and force generation. Most of the hyper-methylated genes were associated with cancer promotion. The data suggest that rigorous and long-term exercise from adolescence to adulthood has beneficial effects on epigenetic aging.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-024-01440-5