Exercise Reverses Heart Aging

As people age, the heart and arteries can stiffen like an old rubber band. A two-year randomized trial found that regular exercise in previously sedentary adults partly reversed that stiffening and raised fitness. (nih.gov) The study, published in *Circulation* on January 8, 2018, enrolled 61 healthy but inactive adults ages 45 to 64; 53 finished the trial. Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Texas Health Resources assigned them either to supervised exercise training or to a control program built around yoga and balance work. (nih.gov) The exercise group trained for two years and averaged adherence of 88%. Their maximal oxygen uptake, a standard measure of cardiorespiratory fitness, rose 18%, while the control group did not show the same change. (nih.gov) The heart change the researchers tracked was left-ventricular stiffness, which describes how easily the main pumping chamber fills with blood between beats. In the exercise group, that stiffness fell significantly, and the chamber’s filling volume increased, changes the authors linked to better pumping capacity at the same filling pressure. (nih.gov) The workout plan was not a daily marathon. It built toward four to five sessions a week, including one high-intensity interval day, one longer moderate session, one or two additional moderate sessions, and one or two strength sessions. (sciencedaily.com) Researchers said timing mattered. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s summary of the study said the regimen appeared to work best when started before age 65, when the heart still retains some ability to remodel. (nhlbi.nih.gov) The paper focused on heart stiffness and aerobic capacity, not on whether participants later avoided heart failure, heart attacks, or death. Its authors wrote that regular training “may provide protection” against future heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, a common form of heart failure in older adults, but that outcome was not directly tested in this trial. (nih.gov) The study also did not test every amount of exercise. A University of Texas Southwestern summary said earlier work by the same team found that exercising only two to three times a week was not enough to produce the same remodeling effect. (sciencedaily.com) What the trial adds is a concrete dose: in middle age, a structured four-to-five-day routine changed how the heart filled and how much oxygen the body could use during exertion. The core finding was not that aging stops, but that some age-related cardiovascular stiffening was still modifiable. (nih.gov)