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Exercising Our Brains, Muscles and Cells to Fight the Ageing Process

Life expectancy is increasing, but the time spent in good health (health-span) is not keeping pace, with implications for health, social care, and pensions resulting in estimated costs more than doubling by 2050. Thus, understanding the many factors that contribute to healthy ageing versus frailty, and potential things we can do to promote healthy ageing is important. For example, how does stress, being physically inactive and poor dietary practices affect our body, leading to unhealthy ageing? As part of the 2015 Pint of Science series, researchers interested in brain health, muscle function and the immune system from the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Birmingham, UK discussed the effects that ageing itself and stress, physical activity and nutrition can have on our health and wellbeing. The objective of our presentation was to question the lifestyle that we lead and discuss realistic alternatives to incorporate healthy activity, such as exercise, into our lifestyles to improve our healthy ageing. Here, we summarise this presentation and illustrate the effectiveness of physical activity for ageing healthily. Commentary Public health interventions along with health care and education improvements over several decades have led to an increase in life expectancy and global population ageing (1). However, an inactive lifestyle in old age is one of the main causes of muscle wasting, which increases the risk of falls, fractures and disability and reduces quality of life (2-4). If we do not find a way to prevent muscle wasting in old age, we will be faced with an unprecedented number of frail/disabled older individuals in our society. Further, age is one of the most important risk factors for brain diseases such as dementia and stroke (5), but even with natural healthy ageing, brain structure and function is altered, thus our ageing (and sedentary) population presents a looming economic and social issue. Urgent implementation of effective countermeasures is critical to fully prepare for the challenges of the world's changing demographics and create an equitable, affordable and sustainable ageing society for the future. Major efforts need to focus on 'prevention', with emphasis on modifiable risk factors such as engagement in physical activity right across the life span. Engaging in regular physical activity has clear benefits for our health, preventing and treating diseases that drive poor quality of life, thereby reducing the incidence of morbidity (for example, depression, dementia, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers) and premature mortality. Thus, exercise has a significant role to play in both the prevention and treatment of disease as well as minimise the effects of ageing. However, despite its clear benefits, 80-100% of us (depending on age and sex) do not meet public health recommendations for physical activity [z.e.,[greater than or equal to] 30 min of moderate-intensity exercise on at least 5 days of the week ([greater than or equal to] 150 min [wk.sup.-1]), or 20 min of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise training on at least 3 days of the week ([greater than or equal to] 75 min [wk.sup.-1]) (6,7)]. In fact, 'physical inactivity' has now become a top 10 killer in our society (8). A busy lifestyle and the associated 'lack of time' is frequently cited as a common barrier to engaging in regular exercise (9); however, in addition to this perceived barrier to being active, this busyness also has direct negative implications for our health and well-being. Research has demonstrated that psychological stress can make us ill and contribute to the development of a range of diseases. For example, long-term ongoing stress or distress like care giving, bereavement, or depression can actually worsen how our bodies' immune system functions, making us more susceptible to infections, and less likely to recover quickly from infections and wounds or surgery (see refs 10-14). …