NEW YORK, May 27 (Reuters Health) -- Age-related health research is getting a big boost from research conducted in space, according to researchers who spoke this week at a Washington, DC, media briefing, along with astronaut and former Ohio Senator John Glenn.
And since astronauts, like the elderly, are also prone to muscle atrophy, disrupted sleep, altered biological rhythms, bone disease and weight gain, space travelers are also expected to benefit from the study findings, geriatrics researcher Dr. William J. Evans, of the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System in Little Rock, told Reuters Health.
Evans, who spoke at the American Federation for Aging Research- and NASA-sponsored briefing, is currently examining the effects of resistance training on muscle atrophy in the elderly, a NASA-funded project.
"We're looking right now at how extremely frail, debilitated patients can be rehabilitated through exercise and hormone and diet, and I think that that information, certainly, is extraordinarily useful to NASA," Evans said.
And also useful to geriatric research. "We certainly know this loss of muscle causes many old people to become extremely dependent, and so this kind of research holds great promise to allow us to understand what these mechanisms are," the researcher noted.
"How we can prevent the loss of muscle or at least slow it down, either nutritionally, through hormone therapy, or through exercise, is a fundamental issue right now," he added.
The mechanisms may not clear yet, but what is known is that resistance exercise does increase muscle size and strength, even in men and women as old as 100 years, according to Evans.
"What our research really shows is that anybody, no matter how old and frail, can become much more independent through reasonable exercise," he said.
"I think aging becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy for many of us," he added. "We expect to get weaker and less active, and so we do."
"But even people who have never exercised for 90 years and begin to exercise -- we can quadruple their muscle strength and make them much more independent," said Evans.
To increase muscle strength, the resistance exercise of choice needs to tire the muscle out after about 10 repetitions, according to Evans. "If you can lift a weight 20 times, it probably won't make you a lot stronger," he said.
More tips on resistance training for the elderly are available in a free booklet published by the National Institute on Aging and NASA called The Exercise Guide. To order, call 1-800-222-2225.
