Just about everyone knows that exercise is good for you. Some people can even rattle off reasons it keeps your muscles and joints strong, and how it fights off certain diseases. But how many people can tell you the story of why and how physical activity was built into human biology?
A team of evolutionary biologists and biomedical researchers from Harvard are taking a run at it (sometimes literally) in a new study published in PNAS. The work lays out evolutionary and biomedical evidence showing that humans, who evolved to live many decades after they stopped reproducing, also evolved to be relatively active in their later years. The researchers say that physical activity later in life shifts energy away from processes that can compromise health and toward mechanisms in the body that extend it. They hypothesize that humans evolved to remain physically active as they age—and in doing so to allocate energy to physiological processes that slow the body's gradual deterioration over the years. This guards against chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and even some cancers. "It's a widespread idea in Western societies that as we get older, it's normal to slow down, do less, and retire," said Harvard evolutionary biologist Daniel E. Lieberman, the paper's lead author. "Our message is the reverse: As we get older, it becomes even more important to stay physically active." The research team, which includes Aaron Baggish and I-Min Lee from Harvard Medical School, believes the paper is the first detailed evolutionary explanation for why lack of physical activity as humans age increases disease risk and reduces longevity. Read more...
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