Strong Women: Reducing the Risks

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Hitting the gym is not just for young women anymore. As women age, they have come to expect the seemingly inevitable and irreversible weakening associated with aging. But new studies show older women can put new luster on their golden years and lead more active and productive lives. As women grow older, the makeup of their bodies change. The most obvious change is an increase in the relative amount of fat and a decrease in lean body mass, caused mainly by a decrease in the amount of muscle. This age-associated loss of muscle mass has been termed sarcopenia; or literally translated , "vanishing flesh. Sarcopenia is the primary reason people become weaker as they grow older. This slow muscle loss occurs even in healthy individuals who engage in regular exercise, but it usually goes unnoticed for many years; the body compensates by subtly padding affected areas with extra fat. So, "while thinning bones render older women especially vulnerable to fractures, it's the unsteadiness caused by muscle wasting in the legs that leads to falls. To the extent that it makes walking, stair climbing, and getting in and out of chairs difficult, muscle loss can not only rob aging adults of their independence but also steer them into unhealthy, sedentary lifestyles" ("Vanishing Flesh," Janet Raloff, Science News Online, August 10, 1996). But new research and a progressive fitness program out of Tufts University is giving women strength and reducing the effects of sarcopenia.

Miriam E. Nelson, Director of the Tufts Center for Physical Fitness at the Tufts University School of Nutrition and Science, has been a leader in sarcopenia research and prevention. Nelson says although sarcopenia is linked to the age-related loss of bone and may represent a universal symptom of aging today, the effects of it can be dramatically reduced through regular exercise and weight training. Nelson believes that muscle loss can not only be reduced, but also reversed with strength training. By training with simple hand and leg weights for as little as 40 minutes twice a week, women of all ages can stay fit, look and feel years younger and actually become stronger. And its never too late to start that muscle training, according to her research. Nelson conducted a 10-week study of 100 frail nursing home residents between the ages of 72 and 98. Nelson found they more than doubled the strength of trained muscles and increased their stair-climbing power by 28 percent when they exercised their legs with resistance training three times a week. Nelson then conducted another training regimen, with workouts only twice a week, in a yearlong study with 50- to 70-year-old women. Not only did those women increase their strength throughout the study, they also gained skeletal muscle. Women who remained sedentary declined on both measures ("Staying Strong," Sheila Globus, Tuftonia, Spring 1997, p. 12-18; Science News: 6/25/94, p. 405). Armed with this and other data she has collected over the last decade, Nelson maintains that the weakness resulting from sarcopenia is not an inevitable consequence of aging and has helped devise progressive fitness regimens to combat it with components of nutrition, strength training and regular exercise.

Spring Into Action and the Tufts University Strong Living Program are just two of a growing crop of innovative research-based exercise and nutrition programs helping older adults lead healthy, vital and more independent lives. And as adults over the age of sixty-five are now the largest growing segment of the American population, the need and demand for these programs is increasing rapidly across the country. Elderly women already involved in such programs tend to increase their activity in all aspects of their daily lives. In some cases, this training is enabling some to abandon their wheelchairs in favor of a walker or cane. At a time when muscle loss is robbing elderly women of their strength and their freedom, programs such as these are working to give them back.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Dr. Miriam E. Nelson's Strong Women Website.

The Jean Mayer United States Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tuft's University.

Strength Exercises for Sarcopenia --
Exercise: A Guide from the National Institute on Aging. ANIMATED!

Resistance Training in Older Persons

Exercise and Aging: Practical Suggestions for Older Adults