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Cycling fights ageing process, say researchers

Active people age more slowly than sedentary

Cycling helps stave off the ageing processes that affect inactive people. That's the conclusion of a group of researchers from King’s College London and the University of Birmingham, who found that a group of cyclists over the age of 55 had levels of physiological function that would place them at a much younger age compared to the general population.

The study, published today in The Journal of Physiology, recruited 84 male and 41 female cycling enthusiasts aged 55 to 79 to explore how the ageing process affects the human body, and whether specific physiological markers can be used to determine your age.

Emeritus Professor Norman Lazarus, a member of the King’s team and also a cyclist, said: “Inevitably, our bodies will experience some decline with age, but staying physically active can buy you extra years of function compared to sedentary people.

"Cycling not only keeps you mentally alert, but requires the vigorous use of many of the body’s key systems, such as your muscles, heart and lungs which you need for maintaining health and for reducing the risks associated with numerous diseases.”

Researchers deliberately recruited people who might be considered very active for their age. Men had to be able to cycle 100 km in under 6.5 hours and women 60 km in 5.5 hours.

The aim of the study was to find out whether it was possible to determine someone's age from a range of physiological measurements.

Participants spent two days in the lab at King's undergoing a battery of tests. They were measured for cardiovascular, respiratory, neuromuscular, metabolic, endocrine and cognitive functions, bone strength, and health and well-being. Volunteers’ reflexes, muscle strength, oxygen uptake during exercise and peak explosive cycling power were determined.

Researchers found that they couldn't tell the age of individuals in this group from these measurements. Instead, they found that people of different ages could have similar levels of function such as muscle strength, lung power and exercise capacity.

The maximum rate of oxygen consumption showed the closest association with age, but even this could not determine the person's age with any degree of accuracy.

The paper's lead author Dr Ross Pollock from King’s College London, said: “An essential part of our study was deciding which volunteers should be selected to explore the effects of ageing. The main problem facing health research is that in modern societies the majority of the population is inactive. A sedentary lifestyle causes physiological problems at any age. Hence the confusion as to how much the decline in bodily functions is due to the natural ageing process and how much is due to the combined effects of ageing and inactivity.

“In many models of ageing lifespan is the primary measure, but in human beings this is arguably less important than the consequences of deterioration in health. Healthy life expectancy – our healthspan - is not keeping pace with the average lifespan, and the years we spend with poor health and disabilities in old age are growing.”

Participants were asked to perform a basic but important test of body function. The time someone takes to stand from a chair, walk three metres, turn, walk back and sit down can show they're at a risk of falling of they take more than 15 seconds. But even the oldest riders in the study had times within the norm for healthy young adults.

The study concluded that people age at individual rates, and that more research is needed that follows the same healthy and exercising individuals over time to better understand the effects of ageing the body. 

Professor Stephen Harridge, senior author and Director of the Centre of Human & Aerospace Physiological Sciences at King’s said: “Because most of the population is largely sedentary, the tendency is to assume that inactivity is the inevitable condition for humans. However, given that our genetic inheritance stems from a period when high levels of physical activity were the likely norm, being physically active should be considered to play an essential role in maintaining health and wellbeing throughout life.”

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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9 comments

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banzicyclist2 | 9 years ago
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I'd love to win the lottery so I could ride a more varied range of routes, till then I'll have to be satisfied with my daily commute to work and back, which usually adds up to a couple of hours each day.

I wonder if my STRAVA segment time would improve? dumping the pannier would be good start.

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No Sweat | 9 years ago
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Not sure that this tells us any more than the obvious; people who are still fit enough to ride a bike when they are older, are, well, fit enough to ride a bike.

This is what you would expect if you select people on the basis of being older and still able to ride 100km in a certain time....... and then see how fit they are.

What it does not do is tell us that cycling keeps you physiologically younger... we have no way of knowing how many people have stopped cycling because they are no longer fit enough (or simply can't be bothered) to continue cycling.

(I'm assuming the report is accurate, I've not read the paper)

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pj | 9 years ago
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University in shocking new research findings: 'exercise good for you'.

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Airzound | 9 years ago
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No shit Sherlock!

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Simmo72 | 9 years ago
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Very loaded.
Any exercise is good for you providing your body is up to it. Yes, cycling is not so heavy on the joints as say running but I see plenty of senior runners looking great. Get up, get out and do whatever.

The problem is in todays society so many of us are stuck at desks all day sucking away our health, that is what is bad for us....god I want out of this stupid rat race.

Avatar
ianrobo replied to Simmo72 | 9 years ago
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Simmo72 wrote:

The problem is in todays society so many of us are stuck at desks all day sucking away our health, that is what is bad for us....god I want out of this stupid rat race.

Would it not be nice to win the lottery, have enough never to work again and just cycle every day ?

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mike the bike replied to ianrobo | 9 years ago
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ianrobo wrote:

Would it not be nice to win the lottery, have enough never to work again and just cycle every day ?

Good news and bad Ian.

The good news is that you don't need to win the lottery, you just need to retire, as I did some months ago. And now I ride every day.

The bad news is that I can prove you will still get older. Yesterday was my birthday.

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gazza_d replied to ianrobo | 9 years ago
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ianrobo wrote:
Simmo72 wrote:

The problem is in todays society so many of us are stuck at desks all day sucking away our health, that is what is bad for us....god I want out of this stupid rat race.

Would it not be nice to win the lottery, have enough never to work again and just cycle every day ?

Yes, but I really enjoy my job, and have a nice mostly traffic free commute that takes just over the hour each way on a good day. Cycling to work often forces me out into the cold and dark when I'd otherwise disappear back under the duvet.

Not a bad consolation.

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antonio | 9 years ago
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Not rocket science to conduct this research, just find club and open time trial events to see real life results of cycling into old age. Researchers all seem to be lab based, perhaps they should get on their bikes and make notes.

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