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The effect of physical activity on genetics
The effect of physical activity on genetics

Video: The effect of physical activity on genetics

Video: The effect of physical activity on genetics
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The benefits of regular exercise are well known and beyond question. Constant exercise can help improve health, slow aging, and prevent type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. However, the mechanisms underlying all these miraculous effects are still poorly understood and are of great interest to scientists.

Researchers from Sweden and the United States have found out in which case physical activity has the most beneficial effects on health and makes positive changes at the genetic level.

So what kinds of sports and how long do you need to do in order not to give a chance to diseases and even deceive genetics?

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What can you do to improve your genes?

Research on the effects of exercise on the molecules in the human body has recently been carried out quite often, but mostly they are devoted to the short-term changes that occur as a result of individual training sessions. Scientists from the University of San Diego and Karolinska University in Sweden have teamed up to look at the problem from a different angle and to study the effect of constant training over a long period of time.

“While short workouts have been shown to affect the activity of molecules in our muscles, it is the commitment to exercise habit over the years that provides long-term health benefits. Understanding how our muscles change over long years of training is critical to determining the link between exercise and health,”says study leader Mark Chapman.

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Endurance training

The study involved 40 volunteers, 25 of whom have been doing physical activity for at least the past 15 years: 9 men and 9 women regularly do endurance training (running or cycling), and 7 men - strength training. The rest of the experiment participants - 7 men and 8 women - are healthy, but physically unprepared people of the corresponding age.

All subjects underwent skeletal muscle biopsies to measure the activity of over 20,000 genes.

It turned out that in those who constantly run or ride a bike, the activity of more than 1000 genes significantly differs from the parameters of people from the control group. Many of the altered genes have been linked to the prevention of metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes.

The results of the study of weightlifters were unexpected - they showed significant changes in only 26 genes. However, the scientists say, this does not mean that strength training does not have a positive effect on health in the long term. The fact is that in this experiment, RNA molecules were used to control the parameters, and the changes as a result of strength training may be associated with proteins.

A year of training improves metabolism

The researchers also compared the findings with the results of tests taken from people with type 2 diabetes before and after a month's training period. It turned out that even after a short period of regular physical activity, gene activity in people with metabolic disorders begins to approach the characteristics of constant adherents of intense training.

“This suggests that even training programs lasting 6-12 months are enough to have a positive impact on the health of people with metabolic disorders. The study helped identify genes that are sensitive to exercise,”says Karl Johan Sundberg, professor at Karolinska University.

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