#262

It’s mostly problematic if someone tries to use it to counter RCT or MR data, that doesn’t make sense.

#263

I don’t believe so, but that is probably where I should I draw the line for evidence (RCT > MR > OS), the rest can be disregarded for practical use (i.e in vitro mechanistic studies, or mice data), there can be some exceptions to this rule, but in general it should be good.

#264

It’s not a matter of belief. It’s statistics and causal inference. Read: https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071108

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#265

I think part of the problem is the use of the word “elite” to label the top 5% or 2% of the general population. This is easily confused with elite endurance athletes, who spend a lot more time training and have a significantly higher VO2 max than the general population.

I’ll use myself as an example since I recently did a VO2 max test on a stationary bike. I think it illustrates the difference between elite athletes and the elite class of non-athletes. Plus I get to brag about how well I did, which is both enjoyable in the moment and motivating in the long run.

I’m 65 years old and my VO2 max was measured at 58 mL/(kg·min) on a bike. This puts me in or near the highest percentile for a young man, which some studies call elite, and which should provide the highest-level of risk reduction in all-cause mortality available from aerobic fitness according to the various studies cited in this thread.

My current aerobic training consists of three weekly sessions of about 35 min of Zone 2 cycling followed by about 3 all out sprints running up stairs and rest between sprints. The first sprint lasts about 30 seconds, and the others 4 minutes. I ride on a park path beside a lake, so I’m getting some nature bathing in at the same time. I enjoy this routine because the environment is pleasant and it’s hard but not brutal. I’ve exercised for most of my life at this intensity, although the details have varied based on my lifestyle context and what the available research showed at the time. I also do 4x weekly resistance training, which is less enjoyable but well worth it, and plan to add back some flexibility training once I have time to design a program.

Elite male endurance athletes can have a V02 max of 85. This number is taken from runners and is meant as a ball-park reference only. Perhaps going from 58 to 85 will reduce my risk of death further, or perhaps it will increase it if it triggers an arrythmia or other issue.

This question is academic for me since I think 58 is getting me plenty of bang for my buck, and I’m not really willing to spend many hours a day training. That would stop being fun : ).

Of the 168 hours we all have in our week, spending about 3 hours exercising in a pleasant environment seems like a no-brainer investment of my time, when I consider both the immediate and long-term health benefits

8 Likes
#266

@ageless64 very good. For myself I try to remind myself that what is fun changes over time. More exercise vs less can be fun if it is for a purpose that I am investing my identity in, such as an adventure or a competition. But generally I agree that we should work on our weaknesses ahead of our egos (strength).

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#267

Was this here already?

“Conclusion- Cardiorespiratory fitness can be improved by favorable body composition, physical activity, and performance enhancers. Despite being a strong predictor of mortality, VO2max is not causally associated with T2D or longevity.”

Maybe it’s that aging causes decreased VO2max and not vice versa? Others age more slowly → higher VO2max?

3 Likes
#268

What is the optimal amount of exercise and how much is too much?

When it comes to exercise, more isn’t necessarily better – and we’re now discovering the ideal dose for better health

The benefits of exercise are so great that if it were a drug, it would be a miracle cure. But what is the optimal dose for better health: are people who run ultramarathons, lift weights every day or swim the English Channel better off than those who just go for gentle walks? And is it possible to overdose? Now, thanks to large-scale studies that follow cohorts of people over long time periods, we can finally find the answers.

Anyone able to access?

1 Like
#269

What is the optimal amount of exercise and how much is too much.pdf (539.0 KB)

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#270

Looks like there’s not much reason to go more than a couple hours a week.

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#271

@Dr.Bart any thoughts on these studies?

#272

Post the studies. The article is behind a paywall.

#273

Bloomberg article on elite “aging” athletes (think Olympic level). Article link should be live over the next 5 days.

Olympic competitors over 40 are inspiring — and less of a rarity than they used to be. Scientists say athletes with extreme staying power may be that way due to molecular-level advantages. Studying those could further the quest to understand and slow down the ravages of human aging.

# The Oldest Olympians Might Hold the Key to Slowing Aging

2 Likes
#274

You’re misunderstanding Magness’ point. He’s not saying that “higher is better” is not correct (and it’s data, not ideology). He’s saying that:

you don’t need to go to a lab and measure your Vo2max. You don’t even need to worry about Vo2max itself (or your watche’s horrible estimation of it). All you need to do is focus on overall aerobic fitness. Which can easily be measured, compared, and improved in a number of ways that are less expensive and more accessible than Vo2max. …

Once you have a baseline or comparison point, the goal is simple. Aim to get your aerobic fitness a bit better over time. Research tells us that the fitter we are, the better we are, at least in terms of mortality. There’s likely an upper limit, where further gains aren’t meaningful, but in the larger studies the highest of high fitness (top few percent) that had the largest effect

1 Like
#275

You’ve confused me. I recall saying that vo2max was not a good longevity / healthspan metric. I found “experts” saying roughly the same thing, for example by magness:

“ it’s important to note that it’s actually fitness not actual VO2max that correlates to reduced mortality is that overall fitness is easier to improve than Vo2max!”

So I still think vo2max is not a good longevity metric. It’s not bad but the contribution of body weight is too great to balance the importance of muscle mass. A 8% body fat cyclist with no upper body muscle and low bone density but great cardiovascular fitness is not chasing longevity.

That said, I do think avoiding having a low vo2max is a great idea. Lose the excess weight and build the muscle to burn fuel with oxygen and do enough endurance and HIIT exercise to build the infrastructure to collect and distribute a lot of oxygen.

1 Like
#276

Excellent recent article in Outside magazine about VO2 max and its association with brain size/intelligence.

This echoes the findings for fitness and longevity. If you ask people how much they exercise, then wait to see how long until they die, the results are often ambiguous. But if you measure their VO2 max, it’s crystal clear: [those with higher VO2 max tend to live longer], with no upper limit on how high you want VO2 max to be. This data suggests a similar pattern for cognitive function.

3 Likes
#277

I came across this article. AND here we go AGAIN, it’s same issue over and over again.

We are looking at amateurs without proper exercise structure. So couple of points.

What they define as “moderate” exercise sounds like, and I only guess is Zone 2 and their conclusion was: For moderate-intensity exercise, more is still better: your risk of dying early, say from a heart attack, will keep decreasing the more you do (see “Tortoise vs the hare” graph, below). “There’s no such thing as too much exercise if it’s moderate-intensity aerobic exercise,” says Duck-chul Lee at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

SO NO UPPER LIMIT FOR ZONE 2, the graph cut off at 15 hours with the benefit still climbing - NO SURPRISE HERE. Professional athletes can spend 15-20 hours per weeks in Zone 2

I have no idea what Zone is defined by “vigorous” by I am guessing Zone 3-5, they mention marathon runs… Benefits from vigorous almost flatline at 2-3 hours. Top athletes spent less 20% of their training here. So athlete training 15-20 hours/week will spend 2-3 hours total time in those zones and also will likely periodize the interval training within blocks of the year. So there will be weeks or months they don’t even do any intervals. That’s because these are very hard to recover from. Don’t ask for specific protocols that’s all over my head.

So garbage exercise produces garbage results and if someone is training purely in Zone 3, no proper recovery, no base training, etc… they will burn out pretty fast and WILL NOT ACHIEVE THEIR highest VO2 max potential.

This is why Vo2 max correlation studies are so much more telling, because it takes proper training to achieve high VO2 max which correlates with healthspan and longevity. Just ask Brian Johnson.

I feel I am writing the same post for the 20th time already.

1 Like
#278

Did you even bother looking at the graphs ? There is literally no upper limit for moderate exercise and benefits continues to climb beyond 15 hours a week.

#279

My brother and I differ on this, he walks 4 miles every day and it takes about an hour. I run 2 miles as hard as I can and it takes about 20 minutes. I sprint 3 times up hills in there. I think you have to tell your body what you expect of it and that’s what I expect. So, vigorous.

That’s the green and blue lines. All you need is a couple hours. Now I agree that if I sat in a chair at the computer the rest of the time I would be giving up some life. I generally do work that includes motion and balance. Like sawing down trees, or taking out fence and rolling it up, or building fence or trimming goat hooves for my wife. So I feel like walking is a waste of time.

We agree that a couple hours of vigorous is the base and beyond that it depends on what you do with the rest of your time.

#280

The trouble is, that there are no unequivocal studies showing that there is some level of exercise that’s beneficial to everyone. Population level studies are almost completely pointless when it comes to deciding what level of exercise is optimal for a particular individual. Yet, all these arguments revolve over and over and over again around populations. “Look at that graph where people who exercised…” - you can take it and shove it. For reasons unknown, it has not yet dawned on many people that you are not population. So a study that shows that the average number of legs in a canine police officer handler and his dog is “three” per individual being, is not helpful when trying to tailor pants that fit. A statistical average might not result in a single actual living individual. We all respond differently to exercise, and there is not a single formula that fits everyone. I liked the HUNT study (which RapAdmin posted a while ago), which showed that those who were genetically capable of the greater VO2Max were also the ones who had the greatest risk of serious diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, mental disorders and cancer.

Exploring shared genetics between maximal oxygen uptake and disease: the HUNT study

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physiolgenomics.00026.2023

And the PR writeup:

https://www.physiology.org/detail/news/2023/10/18/genetic-connection-between-aerobic-fitness-and-disease-is-not-what-you-d-expect?SSO=Y

“The researchers had “speculated that genotypes underlying high VO2 max could also be underlying a reduction in disease risk,” as high VO2 max is beneficial for your health. However, their findings showed the opposite. The increased creatine levels, Type 1 diabetes and endocarditis phenotypes were all associated with gene variants that had been associated with increased VO2 max. That means these gene variants were associated with better cardiorespiratory fitness and also with serious health problems. “The exact mechanisms underlying these observations might be complex and will require further research,” the authors concluded.”

The point is, if you show benefits from greater exercise and the resultant VO2Max, it’s because you are predisposed to diseases which are ameliorated by exercise. But this does not mean that those with a different genetic profile will also benefit in the same way. It’s like someone who owns a bunch of cars evangelizing the benefits of car insurance to those who don’t own a single car - well goody for you, but leave me alone.

And so on all along the line. One can talk about the studies showing smth about the average man until the cows come home, but you are an individual, and no population level study necessarily says a thing about you when it comes to exercise or many other things.

And so it’s always a battle between influencers for and against various levels of exercise, with zero necessary applicability to your life - here’s one, who argues against, also with little proof, all trying to convince you they are right:

It’s all nonsense - it might, or might not apply to you, no matter who says what.

So what can we do? Until the glorious future where individualized medicine can create individual prescriptions based on your exact profile, all we can do is go by how we feel and the things we can measure. Which is obviously imperfect and can be deceptive. But I know how I feel at a given level of exercise and how it affects my various biomarkers etc., and that’s what I gamble my protocol on - and I completely ignore the “advice” of strangers, regardless of their supposed credentials (including Peter Attia and any of his guests, Rhonda Patrick or her guests etc.), because in the end whatever noises they make, it is I who has to die… so the responsibility is mine - I’d rather die of my own mistakes than someone elses. YMMV.

5 Likes
#281

So maybe my brother is right about this. The lines for the first 2 hours whether moderate or vigorous are all together. The guy in the video says the run might kill me. Actually I get bored walking and can’t stand it. I’m going to run and hope my body tells me just before it fails.