The very dangerous disinformation website ‘Medical News Today,’ who usually shill for Big Pharma and the Food Industry actually published a half-decent article a few days ago, looking at a Finnish study on the associations of long-term physical activity in adulthood with later biological ageing and all-cause mortality.
For this study, the research team used the data of more than 11,000 sets of adult twins from the Finnish Twin Cohort. The amount of physical activity and other lifestyle factors of the participants was assessed through questionnaires given in 1975, 1981, and 1990. Participants were placed into four groups: sedentary, moderately active, active, and highly active. And participants’ mortality was monitored until 2020, a span of 45 years. In those still alive in 2020, biological ageing was assessed from blood- and body analysis.
Among those who had died before 2020, after adjusting for lifestyle factors, the sedentary group only had a 7% higher mortality than the three other active lifestyle groups. However, they also discovered that those in both the ‘sedentary’ and the ‘highly active’ groups, the two extremes on both ends of the spectrum, had experienced accelerated biological ageing.
Now, this is hardly surprising. People who tend to be sedentary also tend to consume a lot of bad foods. They poison themselves while getting overweight. So, of course their bodies will struggle and age quicker. And as for exercise, any form of exercise is stress, and stress ages the body. While occasional or moderate exercise will keep you “able” and “fit,” as in having stronger bones, stronger and bigger muscles that protect the body and help in any physical situation, intense and regular exercise will produce too much stress and thus accelerate ageing. I’ve touched on this many times and it’s extremely easy to spot nowadays with all fitness- and sport fanatics having their own YouTube channels. They all look 10-, 15- or even 20 years older than their actual age, highly noticeable in their skin, but especially their face. Some of the worst examples include ‘vegan’ Hench Herbivore, Cori Lefkowith (Redefining Strength,) Finbar’s Fitness, The Bioneer, Nick Bare, Sam Sulek, and millionaire pill-popping Bryan Johnson. They all could join the cast of any zombie-production without any make-up. Of course, you can pick any vegan you want, as malnutrition will age you faster than anything else, including extreme exercise.
Now, the researcher in this study also thought, after looking at lifestyle factors, that instead of regular physical activity being the cause of lower mortality risk, it may instead be an indicator of an overall healthy lifestyle, helping to extend a person’s life.
This should also be obvious, as those who do exercise tend to avoid, or at least limit, their intake of processed junk food and they also tend to limit other stressful factors and bad habits while taking better care of their sleep. So, while the exercise in itself is a stressor, they tend to limit other stressors that sedentary people are exposed to. And while most of them still follow a bad diet, they do tend to eat a little more meat and eggs, which will help in recovery and extending their lifespan.
One of the researchers also said that:
“Compensatory belief is the common notion that if you do something healthful it can counteract something unhealthful,” he continued. “For example, if you exercise it will eliminate the adverse effects of smoking. And in fact, what the study found was that the mortality in the sedentary group improved if you eliminated factors such as obesity and smoking.”
Again, this is simple logic. Anything that is not natural is a stressor to the body. Your body is designed to handle a certain amount of stress, usually what we would experience in nature from hunting, scavenging, and building/securing a home. Every stressor will be like adding a few drops into a glass. If you’re not healthy enough to recover and heal, as in removing those drops, the glass will eventually spill over. So, you cannot prevent the glass from spilling over by adding more drops of water. Smoking is a stressor, exercise is a stressor, taking drugs/medicines or drinking alcohol is a stressor, consuming the wrong foods that are not species-appropriate is a stressor (as in carbohydrates, vegetable/seed oils and any kind of plant food,) and so on.
So, what is the best way to slow down you biological ageing and to live as long as possible? The most crucial step is to follow our species-appropriate, species-specific diet of strictly animal-based foods, as in meat, organ meats, and animal fats. As for exercise, you should move around a little on a daily basis as you need to move to aid circulation and the movement of lymph. Some kind of strength training 2 to 4 times a week can be a trade-off, especially as you get older. While it’s a stressor, it will keep you more able and your body will be stronger, preventing injuries or damage from any kind of accidents. With that said, any kind of excessive exercise will age you quicker, and likely cut many years of your lifespan. The absolute worst kind of exercise is high intensity cardiovascular-based exercise, as in any kind of sport or activity that involve long-duration physical activity or physical burst, as in soccer or ice hockey.
Being an ‘elite athlete’ is a sure way of cutting your life short, especially if you do not consume the right foods and utilize fasting.
For more on health and maximizing life quality and your lifespan, check out my Nutrition and Health Quick start page.