Telomere is a region of repetitive DNA at the end of chromosomes, which protects the end of the chromosome from destruction. Everytime a cell divide, the telomeres shorten. This process occurs until the telomere is too short to enable cell division and thus telomere act as a timer counting down our biological age.
A study is conducted to measure the relationship between a person’s lengths of telomeres and their physical activity level. This investigation is carried out by measuring the lengths of telomere in the white blood cells of 2401 twins with a questionnaire asking their physical activity level, smoking status and socioeconomic status. Results have shown that people who did not exercise regularly had shorter telomeres than those who are more active. On average, the least active (getting just 16min of exercise a week) had telomeres 200 base pairs shorter than the most active (exercising 3 hours a week), which translates to them being about 10 years biologically older.
One of the factors that were found to lead to shortening of telomere is psychological stress. This is because psychological stress can translate to oxidative stress, and act as a source of free redicals that cause DNA mutations and shorten telomere length. Exercise in your leisure time can decrease the level of oxidative stress and help slow down the rate of telomere shortening and help cellular aging. However, exercise that occurs under stress, such as working in a manual job has the opposite effect and increases telomere shortening.
Original article: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/168/2/154
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