Natescape (Nate Byrnes)

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Or so this new study seems to indicate. Essentially, the article details a study done by German scientists that seems to say that consistent, long-term exercise makes a significant difference in how much one’s cells age. As someone who’s now closer to 50 than 25 (*shudder*) and has been exercising fairly regularly for almost a year now, this is of some importance to me. I’d like to be able to enjoy my later years as much as possible, and it seems that regular exercise is an important step towards that goal.

Another nifty side effect of regular exercise (not really measurable) is that the older study subjects who exercised LOOKED younger. From the article:

It ‘‘was striking,’’ recalls Dr. Christian Werner, an internal-medicine resident at Saarland University Clinic in Homburg, ‘‘to see in our study that many of the middle-aged athletes looked much younger than sedentary control subjects of the same age.’’

I have noticed a real difference in how I FEEL since I’ve started exercising. I’m just more energetic, more optimistic, and, oddly, my normally sieve-like memory has seemed to be better of late. Who knows if there’s a correlation between exercise and memory, but there are proven correlations with cholesterol, weight, blood pressure, heart disease, Type-2 diabetes, etc. Now we know that your body’s cells, it’s building blocks of existence benefit from exercise.