Seniors Activity
Regular exercise helps healing in older people!
Did you know that as you age, your body will become less efficient at healing itself? Even small wounds such as paper cuts or grazes will take longer to heal as you get older. However, one study has found that regular exercise may make the wound-healing process as much as 25% quicker.
The participants in the study hadn't done any regular exercise for at least 6 months and they started exercising 3 times a week. The exercise sessions consisted of a 10 minute warm-up, 30 minutes cycling, 15 minutes jogging or walking briskly, 15 minutes strength training and a 5 minute cool-down.
Each participant completed exercise endurance and stress assessments at the beginning and end of the study and researchers collected saliva samples from them in order to measure levels of cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone and previous studies have suggested that exercise is associated with lower levels of cortisol.
At the end of the study, the researchers found that skin wounds healed an average of 10 days faster in the people who exercised (29 days in the exercise group vs. 39 days in the non-exercise group.). Not surprisingly, exercise endurance also improved in the group that worked out.
The researchers were somewhat surprised to find a sharp increase in cortisol levels in the exercise group. The hormone is typically boosted by stress, and other studies have suggested that exercise may lower levels of stress. However, they concluded that "The stress of exercise may enhance the regulation of cortisol. This increase in cortisol levels may represent a biological pathway by which exercise helps wounds heal.".
The results from this study appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.