The modern world is still full of myths and some false dogmas that most people live by. One of these myths I often hear about is the claim that sport helps to prolong life.
To be honest, and I, once upon a time, thought so too 🙂 That's not true. The truth is that heavy physical activity shortens life. Back in 1924, American biologist Raymond Pearl expressed this opinion. Since then, scientists have clearly realized that this statement is true for all animals. It has also been found that, in general terms, life expectancy in humans depends on metabolic rate and brain size 🧐
There is one point worth clarifying. I often notice a common mistake of many pseudo experts, especially trainers - misunderstanding the concept of metabolic rate. For example, I have heard many times that fat people have a slow metabolism. Let me explain on my fingers what it is:
Fast metabolism means that chemical reactions within the body happen quickly 🏃🏃♀️. These reactions are many and they occur at different times, in different tissues of the body, so it is difficult to describe exactly any general metabolism of a person by one appearance (we are talking about adults). All reactions of metabolism are conditionally divided into reactions of catabolism and anabolism. Reactions of catabolism (decay, degradation) are aimed at obtaining energy from different substances inside the body, while reactions of anabolism (formation, synthesis) already use this energy to create new substances and build new cells.
Now for some examples. All healthy teenagers in their puberty have a fast metabolism because their bodies are growing! Their catabolic and anabolic processes are highly accelerated. This acceleration is determined by: nutrition, genetics/epigenetics and hormones ( growth hormone, thyroxine, insulin).
As a person grows older their metabolism slows down. This is a natural process. However, there are exceptions, especially in today's world, where food is available to almost everyone, where various supplements, steroids, sports nutrition are available, where there is a fitness cult of big muscles. It is now possible to speed up your metabolism. All you have to do is eat, take different drugs, sleep and work out. Millions of people are hooked on this system and they can shorten their life expectancy with it 🙂.
Just pay attention to the people you grew up with, like your classmates. Those who were developmental moose in their senior year of high school, years later look older than their peers - they have more gray hair, they may go bald, they may get fat, their overall activity is lower. Their body resource (stem cell pool) is gone or has gone faster than others due to their fast metabolism.
Slow metabolism, roughly speaking, in people who have difficulty with tissue growth. Often such people are skinny all their lives, and eat everything (there are exceptions, here I explain primitively 🙂). In such people tissue cells divide relatively slowly, their body may be dominated by catabolic processes. Such people often suffer from anemia, deficiency of muscle and cartilage/bone mass, mood swings and other problems related to metabolic rate suppression. But with all this, their body's resource is being saved 🙂
Now let's get back to sports. If a person is engaged in sports constantly, but also takes the above-mentioned hormones at the same time - he speeds up his metabolism, and therefore reduces his life expectancy. A person without sport saves his resources by slowing down the metabolic rate. Of course, we're talking about serious sports here, not a treadmill with a smartphone once a week 😁And of course there are individuals with accelerated metabolism and no sport (genetics). I.e. someone burns like a match and burns out quickly and someone slowly smolders like a cigarette. I hope the allegory is clear 🙂
There is an interesting paradox here. People with a fast metabolism though live shorter lives, they live brighter lives - their quality of life is higher 🙂 They are often more active in all aspects of life. For example, they have more sexual partners, and therefore are more likely to have offspring. People with a slow metabolism are often adrift and have a higher quality of life. But again, this is a very rough division, there are exceptions and metabolic rate can be changed!
A few more words about the brain. Some studies have established a clear correlation between brain size and longevity. For example, in diseases where the "useful" volume of the brain decreases rapidly shortens the life of the organism. This is Down's disease, Alzheimer's syndrome, microcephaly, etc. But where there is constant brain activity life expectancy is higher. For example, it is proven that scientists have increased brain volume and live longer.
To summarize, the following - in exercise and metabolism, it is important to strike a balance😉If your metabolism is fast it should be slowed down, if it is slow it should be accelerated to a certain level. It is with this approach that "healthy" aging of the body will occur. Also, in order to live a long life, everyone without exception needs to "pump" their brains. I have already described how to do this in a post with the succinct title "How to get smart" 😉
