Positive Health Online

Abstract

HOLLOSZY, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA. writes that food restriction increases maximum life span in rodents, but that male rats that exercise in voluntary running wheels do not have an increased maximal longevity despite a relative caloric deficit. On the contrary, sedentary rats that are food restricted so that they have the same caloric deficit have an extension of maximal longevity.

Background

Methodology

The author proposes that exercise-induced oxidative stress could prevent a maximum life span-extending effect of a caloric deficit and conducted a study to determine if antioxidants would enable a maximal longevity-extending effect of exercise to manifest in male rats.

Results

The antioxidant diet did not affect longevity in the runners or the sedentary controls. Wheel running modestly increased average longevity but had no effect upon maximal life span .

Conclusion

The results that antioxidants did not affect longevity of the wheel runners supports the interpretation that the caloric deficit induced by exercise in male rats does not have a life-extending effect that is countered by oxidative tissue damage.

References

Holloszy JO. Longevity of exercising male rats: effect of an antioxidant supplemented diet. Mech Ageing Dev 100(3): 211-9 Feb 16 1998 .