By Dr. Robert Goldman & Dr. Ronald Klatz

Longevity News and Review provides readers with the latest information in breakthroughs pertaining to the extension of the healthy human lifespan.  These news summaries are compiled by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M; www.worldhealth.net), a non-profit medical society composed of 26,000 physician and scientist members from 120 nations, united in a mission to advance biomedical technologies to detect, prevent, and treat aging related disease and to promote research into methods to retard and optimize the human aging process.   Dr. Ronald Klatz, M.D., D.O., A4M President, and Dr. Robert Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., D.O., FAASP, A4M Chairman, physician co-founders of the anti-aging medical movement, distill these headlines and provide their insightful commentary.

Take a (Walking) Break
Saurabh Thosar, from Indiana University (Indiana, USA), and colleagues enrolled 11 non-obese, healthy men between the ages of 20-35 years, who participated in two randomized trials. In one trial they sat for three hours without moving their legs. Researchers used a blood pressure cuff and ultrasound technology to measure the functionality of the femoral artery at baseline and again at the one-, two- and three-hour mark. In the second trial, the men sat during a three-hour period but also walked on a treadmill for 5 minutes at a speed of 2 mph at the 30-minute mark, 1.5-hour mark and 2.5-hour mark. Researchers measured the functionality of the femoral artery at the same intervals as in the other trial. The team demonstrated that during a three-hour period, the flow-mediated dilation, or the expansion of the arteries as a result of increased blood flow, of the main artery in the legs was impaired by as much as 50% after just one hour. The study participants who walked for 5 minutes each hour of sitting saw their arterial function stay the same — it did not drop throughout the three-hour period, suggesting a beneficial effect of increased muscle activity and blood flow .  Reporting that: “Three hours of sitting resulted in a significant impairment in shear rate and [superficial femoral artery flow mediated dilation],” the study authors report that: “When light activity breaks were introduced hourly during sitting, the decline in [flow mediated dilation] was prevented.”

Dr. Klatz observes: “A number of published studies report that prolonged sitting – like many people do daily at their jobs, associates with risk factors such as higher cholesterol levels and greater waist circumference, that can lead to cardiovascular and metabolic disease.  Just 5 minutes of walking interspersed into each hour of sitting can help to maintain proper arterial function.”

Physical Activity Keeps White Matter in Shape
Agnieszka Burzynska, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois, and colleagues used accelerometers to track physical activity in 88 healthy but “low-fit” participants aged 60 to 78. Results showed that older adults who engaged more often in light physical activity had greater structural integrity in the white-matter tracts of the temporal lobes, which play a key role in memory, language, and the processing of visual and auditory information. Conversely, those who spent more time sitting had lower structural integrity in the white-matter tracts connecting the hippocampus. “This relationship between the integrity of tracts connecting the hippocampus and sedentariness is significant even when we control for age, gender and aerobic fitness,” said Burzynska. “It suggests that the physiological effect of sitting too much, even if you still exercise at the end of the day for half an hour, will have a detrimental effect on your brain.”

Remarks Dr. Goldman:”White matter tracts enable communication between areas of the brain, but like the rest of the body, they decline with age.  This team finds that regularly engaging in moderate-to-vigorous exercise appears to help protect the brain by maintaining the structural integrity of white matter.”

Eating 5-A-Day Promotes Mental Wellbeing
Dr Saverio Stranges and colleagues at Warwick University (UK) examined data of 14,000 people taking part in the Health Survey for England in order to investigate the links between lifestyle choices and mental wellbeing. Results showed that high and low mental wellbeing were consistently associated with an individual’s fruit and vegetable consumption. 33.5% of respondents with high mental wellbeing ate 5 or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and just 6.8% ate less than 1 portion. While just 20.3% of respondents with low mental wellbeing ate 5 or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and 14.2% ate less than 1 portion. The only other factor consistently associated with mental wellbeing in men and women was smoking. Commenting on the findings Dr Stranges said: “The data suggest that higher an individual’s fruit and vegetable intake the lower the chance of their having low mental wellbeing”. Co-author of the study, Professor Sarah Stewart-Brown added: “Mental illness is hugely costly to both the individual and society, and mental wellbeing underpins many physical diseases, unhealthy lifestyles and social inequalities in health.”

Comments Dr. Klatz:  “UK researchers reaffirm the health promoting benefits of fruits and vegetables, reporting that consuming 5+ portions daily may protect both mental and physical wellbeing.”

Anti-aging medicine is the fastest-growing medical specialty throughout the world and is founded on the application of advanced scientific and medical technologies for the early detection, prevention, treatment, and reversal of age-related dysfunction, disorders, and diseases.  It is a healthcare model promoting innovative science and research to prolong the healthy lifespan in humans.  As such, anti-aging medicine is based on solid scientific principles of responsible medical care that are consistent with those applied in other preventive health specialties.  The goal of anti-aging medicine is not to merely prolong the total years of an individual’s life, but to ensure that those years are enjoyed in a productive and vital fashion.  Visit the A4M’s World Health Network website, at www.worldhealth.net, to learn more about the A4M and its educational endeavors and to sign-up for your free subscription o Longevity Magazine™ e-Journal.