Scientists are discovering the type of exercise that lengthens your life!

Living longer and living healthy has become an obsession for many. But aside from the miraculous foods and all that, there is one issue that can not be overlooked: exercise.

Perhaps the most studied part of the anti-aging is the role of telomeres. Telo what? It is the protective ends of chromosomes that naturally shorten with age. Now, a new German study suggests that a specific type of exercise might be the key to keeping them a long time

. The research was published in the European Heart Journal and the methodology employed consisted of recruiting 164 volunteers in Leipzig, Germany. Through this study, co-author and cardiologist Ulrich Laufs showed that cardiovascular exercise reverses telomere shortening.

The subjects in the study were divided into groups in which they performed different types of activities: some walked, jogged, did high intensity workouts at regular intervals, or lifted weights in groups. machines. For 26 weeks, participants followed the chosen training session three times a week.

After six months, their blood was badyzed to determine the activity of an enzyme called telomerase, which extends the ends of telomeres with DNA building blocks.

At each division of a cell, the telomeres become shorter. "Once the telomeres have reached critical difficulty, the cell undergoes senescence and eventually cell death," Laufs explains in an article in Reverse.

They discover that 45 minutes of operation correspond to an increase in the activity of telomerase. but the same can not be said of the 45 minutes of lifting or lifting.

Laufs can not fully explain why the activity of telomerase increases with the exercise of cardiovascular resistance and not with the lifting of weight, although believes that this corresponds to the release of nitric oxide , a molecule that has been shown to increase the activity of telomerase.

"This concept has been established in experimental / animal models and should be tested in humans," Ulrich concluded, adding that a light trot three times a week would be enough to activate this process.