Step 92: Keep Breathing

Two hundred years ago Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen. His discovery led him to speculate that this common and vital element was both life-giving and hazardous at the same time. His suspicion has proved correct. We can't live without it, but it also causes mischief along the way.

Does Exercise Accelerate Aging?

The question then immediately arises: If oxygen is a bad actor, why should you exercise, which results in breathing and puffing along the way and thereby subjects you to increased risk of oxygen-caused damage? The accelerated traffic in oxygen does result in increased generation of potentially harmful free radicals, the same free radicals that are widely held to be responsible for the deteriorating changes associated with the aging process. So, does exercise accelerate aging? No!

The explanation probably resides in the fact that the systems your body has developed to get rid of these free radicals are also increased by exercise. These scavenger devices clearly go up in trained people. People with higher oxygen transport capacity (VO2 max) not only generate more free radicals, but they also get rid of them faster.

Don't Fear Free Radicals

In a sense, this system is like the old argument about heartbeats and exercise. If every heart has only so many beats in them, why use them up by exercising? Well, it is true that exercise increases pulse rate. But the resting pulse is substantially slower in fit than in unfit persons. A fit person's resting pulse is 48 instead of the usual 70. Sure, his pulse goes up to 120 or 130 during exercise, but the rest of the time it beats at a stately and efficient pace. This means that the net result is fewer beats a day.

I don't fear free radicals. I count on fitness to manage them. But what if you want a booster? Can antioxidants, such as vitamin E or vitamin C, help? There are a number of experiments in animals and people that have been designed to determine whether these compounds can either boost exercise performance or decrease oxygen damage created during exercise. The results vary, but so far there is no evidence that vitamin E improves exercise performance.

To Supplement or Not?

Personally, I don't take antioxidant supplements, although many of my colleagues do. I am ready to be persuaded that they are of real value, but I do not feel that we yet know enough to make this blanket recommendation. On the other hand, physical exercise has multiple, unambiguous credentials as a keystone strategy in reaching 100.