Lifting weights three times a week may help reduce a person’s biological age by almost eight years, a study suggests.
People who did an hour of strength training three times a week had the body of a person significantly younger.
Weightlifting has been linked to better bone and muscle health before but the new study of 4,800 people found lifters also had a lower biological age.
The NHS recommends that adults should be active every day and undertake 150 minutes of moderately intense activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity every week.
It also suggests strengthening activities that work all the major muscle groups, including the legs, back and abdomen, on at least two days a week.
The study looked specifically at the impact of weight training on the body and analysed the length of ‘telomeres’, the chunks of DNA at the end of chromosomes that act like an aglet on a shoelace and stop the genetic material from unravelling and becoming damaged.
Previous studies have shown that people with longer telomeres have a longer life expectancy than those with shorter telomeres, as well as showing that telomeres shrink with age.
Analysis of blood samples revealed that those who worked out the most had the longest telomeres, and that working out often also led to more benefits.
Every ten minutes a week of weight training was linked to around a five month reduction in biological age, with the benefits seen in both men and women as well as people of all ages.
Writing in the journal Biology, the researchers said: ‘In this national sample, 90 minutes per week of strength training was associated with 3.9 years less biological ageing, on average.’
Larry Tucker, a professor in exercise sciences at Brigham Young University in the US, conducted the study and said the work shows a strong correlation, but cannot prove that weightlifting causes the longer telomeres.
‘Correlation does not mean causation. We can’t say that the lifting caused biological age to decrease,’ he told The Telegraph.
‘All kinds of strength exercises were counted and all types of exercise seem to be associated with longer telomeres.’
People in the study who lifted weights most often had telomeres that contained about 225 more pieces of DNA than those who did not lift weights.
‘The findings showed that for each ten minutes spent on strength training per week, telomeres were 6.7 base pairs longer, on average,’ the study states.
‘Therefore, 90 minutes per week of strength training was predictive of telomeres that were 60.3 base pairs longer, on average.
‘Because each year of chronological age was associated with telomeres that were 15.47 base pairs shorter in this national sample, 90 minutes per week of strength training was associated with 3.9 years less biological ageing, on average.
‘This interpretation suggests that an hour of strength training three times per week (180 total minutes) was associated with 7.8 years less biological aging.’
The scientists say weight training may be good for a person’s health and life expectancy because it tackles obesity, but it also reverses muscle loss, increases the metabolism, and boosts cardiovascular health.
‘By reducing the effects of chronic disease and metabolic risk factors, resistance training appears to slow the biological ageing process and reduce cell senescence, which is evidenced by longer telomeres,’ Professor Tucker writes.
