Working out at the gym for ten hours a week, walking long distances with a weighted backpack, cycling intensely for long distances… would you be willing to exercise that hard in the hopes of living a long and healthy life?
A new celebrity trend for extreme exercise is fueled by the promise that spending hours sweating profusely every day will extend your life by years and prevent serious illnesses.
However, medical experts warn that the extreme exercise craze is causing an increase in physical damage that could be dangerously harmful.
What’s more, new research suggests that light exercise—as simple as brisk walking—may actually be our best bet for strong health in later years.
The most prominent of the longevity hunters is Dr. Peter Attia, a Canadian-American physician and author of the best-selling Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity. His Drive podcast has been downloaded 100 million times.
Dr. Attia is said to charge his clients hundreds of thousands of dollars to follow his personalized regimens of intense exercise, diagnostic tests and vitamin supplements at his Austin, Texas, clinic, with the promise that they will live much longer and enjoy of greater strength and health.
Celebrities such as actors Chris Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman and Gwyneth Paltrow reportedly follow their regimens. In his book, Dr. Attia declares that exercise reigns as “the most potent ‘drug’ in our arsenal” when it comes to living longer and free of chronic diseases like heart disease and dementia.
That is not a new message. Except his type of exercise is not for the faint-hearted. Muscular strength, obtained through intense and vigorous exercise, is key. His regimen consists of exercising for one hour each day of the week and up to two hours on Saturdays and Sundays.
One of the most prominent longevity hunters is Dr. Peter Attia, a Canadian-American physician and author of the best-selling Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity.
New research suggests that it’s actually light exercise—as simple as brisk walking—that may be our best bet for solid health in later years.
Dr. Attia, 51, practices what he preaches. He spends about ten hours in the gym each week and is an endurance swimmer and cyclist.
He is also an avid rucker, an emerging sport that involves taking long walks over rugged terrain while carrying a backpack containing 50 pounds of weights.
Dr Attia’s extreme and high-profile anti-aging exercise efforts echo the efforts of Bryan Johnson, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur worth an estimated £300 million, who proclaims himself a “rejuvenation athlete.” “.
Johnson is making headlines around the world for committing to a rigorous anti-aging program of exercise, diet and supplements that he calls Project Blueprint.
It involves six days a week of 60- to 90-minute workouts, which include lifting weights of up to 240 pounds and doing 60 push-ups at a time, as well as doing long, intensive cycling and rowing machine sessions at his gym.
Johnson, 47, says his goal is to revert his biological age to 18. While this has sparked widespread scientific skepticism, Johnson boasts that he now has the lung capacity and physical fitness of the fittest teenager.
Another American wellness advocate, Greg Lindberg, a 54-year-old business magnate, similarly boasts of the benefits of vigorous exercise.
In his book, Lifelong, he states that high-intensity workouts “activate cellular pathways associated with youth and vitality,” in part by stimulating the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and telomerase in our bodies. BDNF is a protein that stimulates the growth of new brain cells and their interconnections, and is involved in learning and memory.
In 2020, a study from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that BDNF levels decline as we reach age 60, but that exercise such as moderately fast cycling can prevent this, Nature magazine reported.
Meanwhile, telomerase helps maintain our telomeres, the “caps” at the end of our chromosomes that act like an aggro on a shoelace and protect our DNA from damage.
Studies suggest that exercise can protect telomere length. The theory is that longer telomeres allow a cell to divide more times and therefore live longer. However, this is not clear.
A study last year by Johns Hopkins University in the United States suggested instead that long telomeres allow cells with age-related mutations to live longer, increasing the likelihood of tumors and some chronic health problems.
Celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow have reportedly taken the advice of Dr. Attia, who says that exercise is the most powerful “drug” in our arsenal.
Another of his famous followers is Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor in the Marvel franchise.
(Meanwhile, Lindberg’s wellness career suffered a setback last month when he pleaded guilty in a US court to a $2 billion fraud.) However, the belief that extreme exercise can actually increase longevity is highly controversial. While supporters cite evidence, such as a recent report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that showed that elite athletes who can run a mile in under four minutes tend to live almost five years longer than the general population, other experts argue. They are skeptical of the whole concept. .
David Stensel, professor of exercise metabolism at Loughborough University, told Good Health: “There is insufficient evidence to support claims that vigorous exercise will significantly prolong longevity.”
Studies on people who train intensively will show improvements in health markers such as BDNF, says Professor Stensel, but this is not the same as showing that such things can prolong longevity or prevent dementia.
“Studies on the exercise rate and health of more than 100,000 Britons, taken from the UK Biobank (a huge database that collects genetic, lifestyle and health information) show that people who are reasonably more active ‘The average person tends to live a little longer than people who are less active,’ says Professor Stensel.
‘However, that may simply be due to the fact that they are healthier in the first place. Overall, current evidence shows that gentle physical exercise, rather than excessive exercise, contributes to living longer and healthier lives.’
Other research suggests that extreme resistance exercise can even cause significant damage. In a two-year study published in May, researchers at the University of Leeds monitored 100 male competitive cyclists and triathletes and found that almost half had scar tissue built up in their hearts, and almost 20 percent had experienced abnormal heart rhythms, called ventricular arrhythmias.
These cause the lower chambers of the heart to contract instead of pumping properly, limiting blood supply and increasing the risk of heart attack. Another life-threatening risk comes from exertional rhabdomyolysis (or rhabdo). This is the damage to muscle cells caused by extreme exercise.
Dr Christopher Gaffney, professor of sports science at Lancaster University, who has studied the disease, told Good Health: “Rhabdo is relatively rare, with around 40 cases per 100,000 people a year, but its prevalence has skyrocketed in recent years.
Research suggests cases have increased 12-fold between 2005 and 2015. “The explosion in cases has been linked to the growing popularity of high-intensity workouts,” says Dr. Gaffney.
“Dying cells release proteins into the blood that damage the kidneys, blocking urine production and causing life-threatening complications such as kidney failure. Those most at risk are amateur male athletes who push themselves too hard, too fast. The risk of rhabdo can arise from abruptly starting an activity such as rucking.
The main signs are that your urine turns brown after an intense workout and extreme muscle pain all the time, not just when you move.
Another complication of extreme exercise is overtraining syndrome, where not giving the body time to recover leaves the muscles in a constant state of inflammation.
Not only do performance levels plateau and then plummet, but they can also affect health, says Dr Daniel Brayson, 39, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Westminster.
He personally suffered from this after competing in ultra-endurance cycling events. “My training involved doing as much cycling as I could based on my job, very early in the morning and late at night, and also on the weekends,” he says.
‘About four years ago, I started experiencing heart palpitations, minor panic attacks, palpitations and dizziness, and all of this started happening with increasing frequency. I felt exhausted and my cycling performance dropped 30 percent. I took a year off cycling; Time is the only thing known to allow me to recover from overtraining syndrome.’
Dr Brayson, who is now researching the disease, adds: “I cycle a lot less now.”
In contrast to the emerging harms of high-intensity exercise, a growing body of research suggests that regular moderate exercise may provide the most significant and sustainable benefits to our health.
A study published in the journal Circulation concluded that adding just five minutes of activity to your daily routine could lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by up to 28 percent.
Lead researcher Dr Jo Blodgett, from University College London, says: “Whatever your physical ability, it doesn’t take long for it to have a positive effect on blood pressure.”
He adds that this included all “exercise-like activities, from running to catch the bus or running a small errand on a bike.”