Mice must have tiny voices, but there are some up in Canada who recently spoke out loud and clear. This tribe of mice lived in the lab of Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Genetically altered, these little guys were bred to age prematurely. And so they did.
As recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by the age of one year, most of them had died after showing the typical signs of age. They grew frail, with diminished brain and muscle mass, patchy hair and shrunken gonads. (Even the sex organs aged prematurely.)
But Dr. Mark took some mice from this same group and at the age of 3 months---the human equivalent of 20 years--- had them exercising very briskly three times a week for 45 minutes. At 8 months, the unexercised mice were ready for Mouse Medicare. But the ones who were doing mini-marathons were still young, inside and out. Their fur was great and most of their muscle and brain mass was retained. Exercise had made the difference and a huge one it was. Though they were genetically programmed to age prematurely, they did not.
Dr. Mark admits the exact threshold of exercise needed to change the course of aging is not known, but anything is better than nothing. He also said his graduate students were very interested in the fact that the exercising mice had gonads that didn’t shrink.
Just sayin’.
Many other studies also show that exercise is an important key to remaining young so I will stop writing about messages from the mouse world and go out for a speed walk. Over time, I’ll see what shrinks and what doesn’t.
Big thank you to Dr. Mark and his mice.
Photo and Crocheted Mouse by Wednesday Elf/Flickr
