#1

I have posted these ongoing Finnish twin studies before, but there’s always updates and even publicity.

Some pop sci write ups:

Quote:

"Moderate Activity Yields Maximum Longevity Benefits

Four distinct sub-groups were identified from the data, which was based on leisure-time physical activity over the 15-year follow-up: sedentary, moderately active, active and highly active groups. When the differences in mortality between the groups were examined at the 30-year follow-up, it was found that the greatest benefit – a 7% lower risk of mortality – was achieved between the sedentary and moderately active groups. A higher level of physical activity brought no additional benefit. When mortality was examined separately in the short and long term, a clear association was found in the short-term: the higher the level of physical activity, the lower the mortality risk. In the long term, however, those who were highly active did not differ from those who were sedentary in terms of mortality."

What is especially surprising is what levels of activity qualify as not providing longevity benefits.

Quote:

"Meeting Physical Activity Guidelines Does Not Guarantee a Lower Mortality Risk

The researchers also investigated whether following the World Health Organization’s physical activity guidelines affects mortality and genetic disease risk. The guidelines suggest 150 to 300 minutes of moderate or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity weekly. The study found that meeting these guidelines did not lower mortality risk or alter genetic disease risk. Even for twins who met the recommended levels of PA over a 15-year period, no statistically significant difference in mortality rates was found compared to their less active twin pair."

Let that sink in: guidline recommendations 150-300 minutes of moderate or 75-150 minutes vigorous. That’s not very much at all. And doing so, over decades, provides NO mortality benefits over the less active.

What this seems to say, is that if longevity is your motivation for exercise, you top out at shockingly low levels of activity. Even the 150 minutes of moderate or 75 vigorous exercise IS TOO MUCH if you are trying for longevity.

If you become even more active, you can now get exercise to become a net negative for longevity. Highly active exercisers were equal to sedentary individuals in lifespan. Boy, is Peter Attia going to be surprised! Jeez, I’m exercising like a fiend and aging pretty fast - as fast as my sedentary friend over there, Mr. Couch Potato.

These are twins, so genetics can largely be taken out of it. And so can other factors like diet, because it is unlikely that the highly active exercisers uniformely had worse diets or other lifestyle habits like smoking or excessive drinking - if anything, the opposite - odds are, that the highly active exercisers were less likely to be hard drinking heavy smoking crap dieters.

As has been said many times. If you enjoy exercise, have at it. Life is to be enjoyed, whether it’s a glass of wine or an extra hour at the gym. What is the point of a longer life where you have to deny yourself the joys of life. But this applies to the other people too! If you don’t enjoy exercise (raises hand!), you can do the minimum and relax - as long as you are not totally sedentary, you are doing just fine… in fact more than fine, you are doing the best for longevity as science sees it. OK, I’m off for my jogging session.

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#2

I’ll be spending the rest of the day firing my personal trainers…. I’m gonna be rich rich rich!!!

If you can find a study that sugar is pro longevity, I’ll throw a parade for you :slight_smile:

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#3

Are you a bird? If so, you’re in luck:

And all the dudes, no such luck - them birds get all the breaks in life, heh. Which is why you marry them, hoping that luck rubs off on you. Marriage is good for men’s longevity. Not so much for women🤪.

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#4

And I even have bird bones!!!

Close enough

Queue the parade!!!

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#5

How fat and sedentary was the non exercising twin? If the non exercising twin was fat and completely sedentary, then I’ll need much more proof of that bizarre outcome.

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#6

How fat is along a spectrum. Presumably there are those who are very fat, very slim and everything inbetween. The results hold in genetically identical twins regardless, shouldn’t make any difference. Obesity is primarily driven by extra food intake, very little by exercise, research shows this repeatedly.

Sedentary is a concept used in all exercise related research. It is not much of a spectrum. Sedentary is sedentary, if you want to have even less movement, you are talking about the immobilized and bedridden, who are a separate category, they are not classified as “sedentary”. Not really going to be a factor as compared to the genetically identical exercising twin.

There is one more aspect to this study briely touched upon by the scientists in their commentary, but which I think bears emphasizing: the study is extremely strong, because of the elimination of the reverse causality confounder. A common objection to “exercise health benefits” is reverse causality - the idea that those who exercise seem healthier not because they exercise but because they are healthy enough to engage in exercise in the first place, while those who don’t exercise are not sicker because they don’t exercise, instead they don’t exercise because they are sicker to begin with. But now look at the result of this study. If the sedentary twin is sick and can’t exercise, then s/he should be doing much worse than the twin who exercises because exercisers are not sick to begin with - the exercising twin would have a health advantage right from the start - and yet, despite that health advantage the highly active exerciser did no better than the sedentary “sick” twin. What does that tell you? Even a sick sedentary twin does equally well as a heavy exerciser who is clearly health enough to begin with to be capable of heavy exercise! That strongly implies that heavy exercise is detrimental - why, because of the comparison to the moderate exerciser. The moderate exerciser did better (not by a huge amount!) than the sedentary twin, and did better than the heavy exerciser. That’s a very powerful study, because the relative starting health in exercisers vs sedentary was clearly not a factor - no worries about reverse causality. Oh, and btw., the “moderate” exercisers really did very modest amounts of exercise - below the WHO and other recommendations of 150 minutes moderate or 75 minutes vigorous.

Not looking good for the heavy exercisers. This study btw. also confirmed something that has been repeatedly observed, and which is what confuses the heavy exercise advocates such as Peter Attia. Namely, that exercise, including heavy exercise, lowers mortality in the short term, but not long term. So Peter sees that “oh, lowers mortality! win! hip hip hurray!” and concludes that heavy exercise is good for longevity - which is NOT the case at all. It will lower your chances of death at any time, but will NOT extend your lifespan - moderating your exercise, shockingly low levels - really, the avoidance of being sedentary - will extend your life unlike in heavy exercise or being sedentary. Another case of “moderation in all things” for the win.

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#7

Wow, not so fast! Call off the parade and re-hire your personal trainers!

1- The study design is idiotic
2- It does not show that at all

Let’s look at the study design. The last time they asked who were exercising was in 1990 then they followed people for death for 30 years. That’s all. They never asked if the exercisers were still exercising of if the non exercisers started exercising which is very common. For instance in my case I only started running really seriously at 58.
They say the short term ACM is better but what they call short term is 21 years (until 2011)
So basically exercising will be good for you for 21 years!
The late term ACM is 21 to 30 years. Basically it means that if you exercised before 50 it will protect you until you are 71 but not until 80. That seems pretty good.

Now even though the design is bad, let’s look at what they got:

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Clearly being very active in 1990 gives you a much better odds of surviving the next 21 years.
BTW the model 3 takes into account the BMI. As BMI is obviously correlated with exercising, we can say that there is a very high likelihood that those guys don’t have any clues about maths, statistics, etc.
Anyway you can safely discard any results for model 3.

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#8

Is that not part of “prospective study designs”?

#9

I enjoyed the discussion but…

What are the comments of the insiders, those who have been studying the issue for decades?

These articles almost sound like the low-carbers denying the beneficial effects of statins on cardiovascular mortality.

The mechanisms by which exercise is beneficial are well known by now (or at least are well-accepted), resistance exercise reinforcing bones, tendons, and muscles, providing BDNG to the brain, providing a glucose sink by muscle hypertrophy, plus overall functionality to avoid serious injuries.
Cardio exercise has numerous other known benefits, including providing oxygen and lactates to the brain.

The a priori knowledge makes it not an issue of IF the exercise is beneficial, rather IF the dose is adequate/optimal to the specific individual. Perhaps, even the magnitude of the benefits is not very precisely outlined, for each single individual.

So, of course, the first thing would be to ascertain the validity of the statistical analysis and conclusions of the twins study. Then, if the article turns out to be sound, why that conclusion and why it clashes against the a prior knowledge and how to update the model accordingly.

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#10

@约瑟夫_拉维尔

I was just in Finland. I imagine these twin pairs were much more healthy at baseline as compared to the US population. The baseline activity level in Finland is much higher and the obesity rate is 50% less than America. Based on my 2 weeks there I would have guessed their obesity rate was 75% less than America if not more. Rarely did I see anyone obese and certainly nobody morbidly obese. Walking around Helsinki is awesome. They have small parks with gym equipment and outside gyms. The locals were lifting weights outside at 30F. Everyone was outside walking as if it was 70F.

On a side note, the produce was also exceptional. Fruits and veggies were much higher quality than what I can get locally whether I go to Costco, Natural Grocers, or any local market. I’d go back just for the blueberries lol.

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#11

@Shady Thank you for the first hand observations. I suspected as much. In my interview with Dr Loh, she said 90% of Americans are obese. And that is what I see around me everyday. It is clear that anybody exercising regularly who also has a healthy body fatness is going to have a tremendous health advantage over their obese, sedentary doppelgänger. Studies (and articles) like this hurt the people who are struggling to build a fitness habit.

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#12

I agree. I hate to see studies about exercise or healthy diet not being beneficial or “too much exercise” possibly being harmful. I understand too much of a good thing could be detrimental, but in today’s world these studies garner headlines and do more harm than good. At least in the US, we don’t have a “too much exercise” problem for 99% of the population.

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#13

I noticed the following line in the discussion - “Being highly active was associated with reduced mortality only in the short term and thus may not have long-term mortality benefits unless activity is maintained continuously.” That’s a fairly significant “unless”. Since, I’m a highly active person I was a bit concerned when I saw the conclusion that highly active people are increasing their mortality compared to other less active individuals. But, it makes sense that the mortality risk for me would increase once I can no longer run or ski at or near my anaerobic threshold. I’m okay with that :slight_smile:

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#14

When studies claim that ‘highly active people’ don’t live longer, I wonder—how many of them truly remain highly active in their last decades, when it likey matters most? Many who once engaged in intense exercise—running, cycling, weightlifting—end up slowing down or stopping due to injuries, burnout, or age-related decline. Maybe it’s not about how hard you pushed at 40 to 65, but whether you keep doing more than just walking or gardening at 80, 90, and beyond?

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#15

You may not gain length of years by exercising regularly, but you will probably enjoy your remaining years more than those who don’t exercise and start deteriorating early.

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#16

That I remember from my short stay in Finland 25 years ago, the blueberry jam was awesome.

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#18

The highly active subjects (8 MET-hours/day) are achieving almost four times the recommended weekly guidelines (>6 MET for 2.5 hours).

From the supplementary material:

image
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Here are examples of 8 MET-hours, what the highly active subjects averaged in a day: running at 5 mph (8 km/h) for 1 hour, cycling at a leisurely pace for 2 hours, light jogging for 2 hours, or otherwise burning 560 kcal/day.

Here are some possibilities of why the most active might have had higher ACM:

  1. Overtraining and Chronic Stress: Excessive high-intensity exercise increases oxidative stress and inflammation, potentially raising ACM risk. Endurance exercise is linked to atrial fibrillation and coronary artery calcification. Marathon-level training increases infection susceptibility by 30-50% due to immune suppression.

  2. Unaccounted Confounders: The study adjusted for education, smoking, BMI, and alcohol but may have missed dietary extremes that extreme athletes may use, the occupational hazards that physically demanding jobs entail, substance use from exercise-related injuries.

  3. Genetic factors: Asymptomatic carriers of familial atrial fibrillation could have higher risk of exercise-triggered cardiac events.

  4. Possible post-1990 Behavioral Shifts: possible activity drop-off, injury-induced disability; the less-active twin might have increased activity in response to aging and apparent exercise benefits

  5. Psychological Factors: exercise addiction is linked to anxiety/depression, and risk-taking behavior can lead to injury and trauma

Regarding #4 above: it could easily be that injuries or disease after 1990 led these highly active subjects to greatly reduce exercise, leading to early death. This would mask the benefits of exercise because the data would show that this “highly active” subject had an early death, when the early death might have been caused by later-life inactivity.

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#19

This is probably wrong or she was misquoted. It’s more probable that close to 90% are overweight, but not obese. Even that 90% number for overweight is high, official numbers put that around 75% of the adult population.

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#20

IMO (which is somewhat evidence based), we don’t need that much exercise to max out longevity. I think the 80:20 rule applies, where you get the biggest chunk of benefit from the lowest hanging fruit. If you walk 10,000 steps, take stairs, and do some basic cardio and strength training, I honestly think that covers it.

I exercised massively when I was younger, and you have to realize that you get injuries, tiredness, overtraining, my testosterone level went lower, my libido got worse, immune system gets weaker.

Moderate exercise is fantastic, and that’s what I do now, and I really enjoy it.

My goal is to keep a decent level of cardio fitness, and keep enough muscle mass to soak up glucose, enough bone density to not break too easily, and I really think that covers most things. If you’re running or doing exercise more than 3 hours per week, I find that hard to believe it’s beneficial for longevity. But if you do it because you love it, and it’s good for your mental health etc, that’s fantastic.

I’m actually curious about the math here. If you do the WHO recommended 150 minutes per week, that’s 7,800 minutes per year. To make it easy, let’s say somebody lives to 80 and exercised since birth until death. That’s 624,000 minutes of exercise, or 433 days - or 1.2 years; i.e. or 1.5% of that 80 year life.

If you up it to 6 hours, or 360 minutes per week, it’s like 2.8 years, or 3.5% of the whole life.

Now the question is, where does the time investment pay off in terms of life/health expectancy?

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#21

Get me right I exercise 5-6 days a week

My understanding it that while the evidence is there for exercise improving health and decreasing certain diseases, there is a lack of evidence that exercise would increase longevity or maximum lifespan

For instance while calorie restriction, mTOR(C1) inhibition and decrease of IGF-1 all have a lot of evidence of causally extending lifespan in mice you do not find such a body of studies on exercise having such a causal effect.

Rather, the world’s compound mechanistic understanding of what drives aging - such that growth pathways up, metabolic rates up and hence things like mTOR and IGF-1 up and calorie consumption up… would also suggest that there are at least some material effects of exercise that could work in the direction of accelerate aging.

See for example:

Life-long spontaneous exercise does not prolong lifespan but improves health span in mice

Conclusion

Life-long spontaneous exercise does not prolong lifespan but improves healthspan in mice


@jaakdefour

@EnrQay

@Shady

@NotSure

@约瑟夫_拉维尔

@NotSure

@josep

@mccoy

@NotSure

@约瑟夫_拉维尔

@NotSure

@josep

@mcco

@cl-user y

@NotSure

@约瑟夫_拉维尔

@NotSure

@josep

@mccoy

@cl-user

We have also discussed this elsewhere on the forum

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