Imagine it: Looking 10 or 20 years younger without any painful injections, special creams, or even surgery.
Better yet, it won’t cost you a dime either–in fact, it’s actually free.
So what is it? According to Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, a professor of pediatrics and exercise science at McMaster University, it’s exercise.
“It shows that exercise is something we should be doing not just for our hearts and our brains and to lower cancer risk,” says Tarnopolsky, whose study was originally presented at The American Medical Society for Sports Medicine. “But also it’s going to make our skin healthier. I think a lot of people wouldn’t even think that exercise helps your skin because if you look at a runner like me we have a lot of wrinkles on our face because we spend so much time in the sun. So the photo aging kind of counters the benefits of exercise [to the skin], so in order to see the effects we have to look at an area that isn’t bombarded by sun.”
This discovery, however, was made accidentally in the lab.
Studying two groups of mice to test the effects of exercise on aging, Tarnopolsky first noted that those who stayed sedentary showed premature signs of aging–such as graying fur, baldness, and generally became sicker more often. But those who kept active well into their senior years didn’t display these signs quite as fast, and generally had healthier organs.
But then he looked at their skin under a microscope and came across something astonishing.
“One of our most striking findings was the skin,” says Tarnopolsky. “It was dramatically abnormal in the aging mouse and completely protected with exercise.”
After making these findings, Tarnopolsky decided to see if this had the same effect in humans–and indeed in did. Recruiting a group of people aged 65 and older, he had them exercise for 30 minutes three times a week on a stationary bicycle, observing their skin using a microscope. After just three months, their skin looked decades younger.
“The dermis thins, so it gives skin a wrinkly, so of sloppy appearance,” says Tarnopolsky. “And then the outer coating, the stratum corneum which is the outer part of the epidermis, it thickens which gives you a flakey skin as you get older as well. What exercise does is prevent the dermis from thinning and the stratum corneum from thickening, making skin look decades younger at a microscopic level.”
So the best advice here? If you want to look younger, forget Botox–trying exercising it out on a stationary bike instead. Just one 30 minute session three times a week may be all that’s needed to get your body–and your skin–in tip top shape.
Readers: Did you notice any differences in your skin after exercising more?
Sources:
Want Your Skin to Look 20 or 30 Years Younger? Try Exercise, Say Researchers – CBC.ca
Prevent Wrinkles and Get Younger Skin Through Exercise, According to New Study – HuffingtonPost.co.uk
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