New research suggests that your body parts age at different rates. The good news: Exercise turns back the clock.
We’ve all heard of the marathoner with the heart of a nineteen-year-old, or the yogi whose backside seems to be decades behind the rest of her. But is there any truth to these statements? Maybe so.
According to a recent study out of UCLA, certain tissues and organs do age at different rates than others. Healthy breast tissue, for example, was found to be about two or three years older than the rest of a woman’s body, while heart tissue appeared to be, on average, about nine years younger than everything else.
Although the exact cause for these variations is still unknown (essentially, it’s in our DNA), there are research-proven ways to help keep your body as young, vibrant and healthy as possible.
“We’re dealt a certain genetic hand, but what we do over the course of our lives can modify that,” says Equinox Advisory Board member Thomas Storer, Ph.D., director of the exercise physiology laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Here’s how to help physically turn back the clock on all your different parts.