Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Today we're going to dive into an intersection of a couple of themes that I've covered before, and those themes are inflammation and exercise, and we're going to be looking at some really interesting new research around resistance training. If you've been following Wisdom Wednesdays, you'll know that I spent twelve
weeks exploring the hallmarks of aging. So this is a framework used by scientists the different biological processes that underlie aging and age related diseases. And if you listen to it, you remember that one of the key hallmarks is inflammation, which is often called inflammating or metaflammation because it's basically
at of your metabolism and it causes aging. So metaflammation, inflammaging, what if you want to call it, But it's basically chronic, low grade inflammation that tends to increase as we get older. And we know that when you look at pretty much all term diseases, chronic diseases, inflammation is involved in them. So I also mentioned some research a couple of months
ago that showed that humans don't age linearly. There seems to be a couple of ages where aging is actually accelerated, and the first one early forties and lots of people will be familiar with that. And then again at around sixty And I was actually talking to somebody recently, a friend of mind, Jeff. He said that he just turned sixty and everything SEMs to be falling off a cliff. Well, actually, Jeff,
that is backed up by science. Now, these are periods changes can accelerate, and one of the best tools that we have to offset these is exercise. And both aerobic or cardiovascar exercise and resistance training have got independent and synergistic effects. And I've talked many times before about how it's your cardio respiratory fitness is one of the biggest predictors of how long you're going to live. But another big predictor of how long you're going to live is
your muscle strength, particularly in middle age. And this is where today's episode comes in so as a brand new
systematic review and meta analysis. So this is where they look at a whole heap of studies, all their data, and they pulled it together and in this one they looked at the impact of resistance training on inflammation as well as body composition and functional capacity in healthy adults who were over the years of sixty, and the findings are pretty compelling for those who have still jump to
lift heavy shit. What they did was they analyzed nineteen randomized control trials and together they had seven hundred and twenty eight participants all over the yege of sixty. And what they found was that resistance training significantly reduced levels of C or CRP. You may have seen this on blood tests that you get from the doctor. It is
a well known marker of systemic inflammation. And actually you may have heard me talked about when I have my open heart surgery, my sea reactive protein was through the roof, absolutely through the roof, came down quite quickly and not reflected. Actually, how that I felt. Now, reducing sea reactive protein is
a big, big win now. They also measured a couple of other inflammatory markers, TNF alpha and interlooking six and the results there were a bit more nuanced significant changes overall, but there were some sex specific differences with reductions noted particularly in females, and interlogun six is an interesting one. T and f Offha is an inflammatory molecule, but interlog in six can be pro inflammatory, but if it's produced
from biokine, that's anti inflammatory. So that may be why that was a bit more nuanced, because some of that interlog in six could be the anti inflammatory stuff that's produced from contracting muscle. But anyway, let's get back to this.
This is where it gets more interesting. The benefits weren't just limited inflammation, and doing resistance training also led to significant provements in both leg strength and functional capacity, which is really important as we get older because when you start to lose functional capacity, it really then starts to impact upon life. And this is really critical because maintaining that muscle strength and function is one of the best ways to preserve independence and quality of life as we age.
And this is not about thinking, hey, I'm too busy because I'm at work and I've got a really busy job. I'll sort this ship retire, as I have heard people say, it becomes a lot harder if you start later. Right now, let's tie all of this in to something that you've heard me go on and on and on about, and that's about mile kinds. These signaling molecules that are released by it during an after exercise, and we know that they have a powerful anti inflammatory effect. Interloking six is
one of the anti inflammatory male kinds. But myra kinds overall play a key role in regulating metabolism, and they signal pretty much all of your organs to perform better or to behave better. And when you lift weights, are you doing any type of resistance training and cardiovascular stuff as well. But your muscle is basically acting like an endocrine organ. It's a signaling organ that sends out these
mild kinds and they help our systemic inflammation. They also support fat metabolism, and they improve the health of your immune system, your cardio your cardiovascular system. They improve your insulin sensitivity, your bone and blood vessels, and even get into the brain and improve brain function. So instant training is not just about getting big muscles. It's actually about creating a biological environment that helps us to age better.
And if you're somebody who doesn't do a lot of this stuff or doesn't do and doesn't know where to start, actually starting with anything. You can use bands, you can use wait stuff, you can use freeways, you can use machines. You don't need to be deadlifting one hundred kilos, but you certainly want to start working towards that and consistency and progression progressive overload, that's really what you're looking at
doing here. Worth noting if we go back to this study that the improvements in seriactive protein, that key inflammatory marker, were most pronounced in women, and this suggests that resistance training could be particularly beneficial for postmenopausal women. And if you haven't listened with doctor Stacy Simms, who is the world leader in and particularly around perry and postmenopausal women, she is very very forthright that all postmenopausal women should
be lifting heavy shit. And here's another good reason why. It really does seem to have even bigger effects on inflammation and therefore not going to affect to inflammation related diseases for postmenopausal women. So the key takeaway here is that exercise and particularly from this perspective, resus is going to help you not only add years to your life, but add life to your years, right, so that quality of life really is very very key. So go lift some heavy shit. Catch you next time,