Exercise May Speed
Healing Time
Posted December 29th, 2007 at 4:21 PM by Hariz Siddiqui
Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise
Animal studies suggest that exercise may be even more important for older people than for younger ones. A report from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows that exercise significantly decreased wound size and increased healing rate in older mice. However, exercise had little effect on the rate of wound healing in young mice. (American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, November 14, 2007).
Mice ran on a treadmill at moderate intensity for 30 minutes a day for eight days. They then were given four full-thickness skin wounds and the rate of wound healing was checked daily for 10 days. Compared to age-matched non-exercising mice, the older exercisers healed faster.
The leading theory is that aging delays wound healing presumably because aging causes your body to produce more free radicals that damage the genetic material in cells. After you eat, food travels into mitochondria, small areas in cells that turn food into energy. They do this by removing electrons and hydrogen from nutrients.
The electrons then attach to oxygen to form free radicals that stick to and damage the genetic material DNA in cells. This can delay healing and presumably even shorten life. Exercise causes the mitochondria to turn food into energy without producing as many free radicals, and therefore could hasten healing from any type of injury or illness.
Written by: Dr. Gabe Mirkin
Tags: cells, dna, exercise, exerciser, free radicals, genetic material, healing, healing rate, illness, injury, injury recovery, intensity, life, mitochondria, rehab, rehabilitation, research, studies, wound
Like what you see? Subscribe to our feed!
The Final Sprint
[…] Original post by The Final Sprint (TFS) | The Internetâ […]
December 29th, 2007 at 5:19 pmWhen I have exercised through injuries I found that I recovered faster. Part of it is mental. By doing some sort of
December 29th, 2007 at 11:52 pmactivity I feel that I am contributing to the recovery and don’t get upset that
I’m inactive.
[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
December 30th, 2007 at 1:55 am[…] Exercise May Speed Healing Time - New study suggests that regular exercise speeds healing time (at least in older mice) […]
December 30th, 2007 at 12:58 pm[…] These blogs are in the news Request a Trackback Exercise May Speed Healing Time Animal studies suggest that exercise may be even more important for older people than for younger ones. A report from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows that exercise significantly decreased wound size and increased healing rate in older mice. However, exercise had little effect on … the final sprint (tfs) | the internet’s premier running, fitness, and nutrition publication - Last Updated - 4 minutes ago Request a Trackback Good News for Libraries Pew Internet: Information Searches That Solve Problems There’s good news for libraries in a report issued yesterday of a joint project by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. The topic of the study was how Americans approach problems that might … notes in the margin weblog - Last Updated - Tuesday January 22 More Blogs… Videos Related Stories Stories ‘Green’ residence hall to be first for University of Illinois chicagotribune.com - nation/world - 0 minutes ago A $23 million residence hall under construction in Champaign will be the first at the University of Illinois to be certifiably green. function footerJump(szWhere) { location.href=’/'+ szWhere + “.php”; } Home | Widgets | Terms | Privacy Copyright 2007 CDR Networks _uacct = “UA-2278587-1″; urchinTracker(); […]
January 27th, 2008 at 1:50 pm