Run, don’t walk
Consider the various health and fitness “truisms” that have turned out to be not so true. As in false.
Eggs are high cholesterol bombs. Avoid them. Uh, no.
Butter is artery-clogging junk. Change to margarine. Nope.
No pain; no gain. So wrong.
Twenty minutes of exercise three times a week is all you need. Sorry, no.
Walking is as good for you as running. Apparently not. This is the latest bit of dogma to bite the dust.
It turns out that running may reverse aging in ways that walking does not, according to a new study of active older people. It was a small study — 30 men and women in their mid- to late-60s or early 70s – conducted at the University of Colorado’s Locomotion Laboratory. (Interesting to note here that Colorado always ranks as the #1 healthiest state in the union. Apparently, the researchers had no trouble whatsoever
recruiting healthy, active volunteers.) For the study period, 15 of these volunteers walked at least three times a week for 30 minutes or more. The other 15 ran (gentle jogging speed) at least three times a week for 30 minutes or more. Then the scientists had each runner and each walker complete three brief walking sessions on specially equipped treadmills that measured the way they moved. The volunteers also wore masks to measure oxygen intake, which helped the scientists determine cardiovascular efficiency.
The results? The runners won. By a lot. They required considerably less energy to move at the same pace as the walkers. In fact, when the researchers compared the walking efficiency of the older runners to that of young people (measured in earlier experiments at the same lab), they found that 70-year-old runners had about the same walking efficiency as a typical sedentary college student. The older walkers, on the other hand, had about the same walking economy as people of their own age who were sedentary.
Yikes.
No one disputes that walking is excellent exercise. All kinds of studies have concluded that older people who walk have significantly lower rates of obesity, arthritis, heart disease and diabetes. But researchers have noted that the walking ability (strength, endurance, efficiency) of walkers decreases with age. They move slower, fatigue more easily, etc. So it was thought that physical decline was a consequence of age, they thought.
The older runners in this study disproved that.
How did they stay so fit – as fit as nonexercisers 40 years their junior? One word: mitochondria. I wrote about these powerhouses within our cells in my book, Counterclockwise. I even had my own mitochondria measured. So the conclusion of the Colorado researchers will sound familiar to my readers: Intense, prolonged aerobic exercise (like running) increases the number and activity and efficiency of mitochondria in the muscles. More mitochondria mean more energy with less effort. More mitochondria mean a higher level of fitness. More mitochondria move us counterclockwise.
Yes, running is tough on joints. And it’s not for everyone. The take-home message is here is that intensity of effort can make a very big difference in cardiovascular health and muscle efficiency. The take-home message is that it is NOT age that accounts for lack of fitness; it is lack of strenuous exercise.
3 comments
This sounds like a very small and flawed study. I’m a runner and walker, so I don’t have a personal reason to dislike the study. However, I am wary of the results for a few reasons. They chose a group of extremely fit people — anyone in their sixties and seventies who is able to run for 30 min. several times a week — and compared them with a less fit group and then attributed the results to one difference in activity without proving causation. No one simply runs or walks 30 minutes a day and does nothing else. We all do many, many, many things a day. How much does each group sit during the day? What do they eat? What other activities do they do? Were any of those other activities factored into the results? Moreover, studies have shown that walking the same number of miles a day (which invariably takes longer) is as beneficial as running. So the results may have been different if they’d compared people who run 30 minutes a day with people who walk 60 minutes a day. I also think the NYT writer should have mentioned the results of the MUCH larger recent Masters Running Study, which showed that heavy running (more than 2-3 hours a week) was correlated with shorter lifespan. People tend to think if a little running is good, a lot must be better, which doesn’t seem to be true. In any case, a much larger, better designed study is needed on this subject, before I’ll draw any conclusions from it.
All good points, Abby. Study is certainly small. Not sure about flawed, though. (Although small generally equates with flawed.) Remember that the walkers and the runners were very fit…so the comparison, after the test period, was between fit people who started out relatively equal — and running made a difference to the 15 who ran. No one disputes the awesome power of walking (as I mention in the post). It’s the mitochondria thing that is (or potentially is) compelling. I spend most of a chapter on mitochondria in the book. I’m a big believer.
Thanks for your response, Lauren. I guess I’m just not convinced that 30 minutes of walking 3 times a week makes someone very fit, especially if those subjects are mostly sedentary the rest of the time. I’d have to look at all the other activities each person does, which is how I think the study is flawed. All activities and dietary differences need to be controlled for to determine causation. But I agree mitochondria are interesting. I’ll definitely reread your chapter on it! (I’m from Colorado, and can definitely attest that they’re a healthy bunch.)
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