10 years younger ?

How hard is to get 10 years younger ?




For best fitness, or even some reasonable health and independence, does walking make a difference ?

Should you walk steadily for quite a long time, say an hour, or walk hard for a few minutes, ease off to get your breath back and then go at it hard again ?

As we get older our body's ability to take in and use oxygen gets less and less. We can't work as hard for as long. Pretty obvious ! Dr Roy Shepherd based at the University of Toronto has been trying to get more precise about this.

Is there a point when one is so unfit that you just cannot look after yourself ?

The answer seems to be threshold of 18 ml/[kg.min] in men, and 15 ml/[kg.min] in women, reached at 80-85 years. This is saying that when your body gets down to only being able to handle 15 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight in the case of a woman [1kilo = 2.2 pounds] then you really are in a bad shape.

A 40 year old in good health but not actually doing any specific exercise might be able to handle 40 ml/[kg.min] ( men) and around 35 ml/[kg.min] in a woman.

So a man at 40 might have a buffer of exercise capacity of around 22 ml/[kg.min] and a woman of the same age maybe 20 ml/[kg.min].

What if you say 60 and already are going down that slippery slope to losing independence ! Say you have not been exercising and your oxygen numbers are around 28 to 30 ml/[kg.min] - a bit too close to that 18 ml/[kg.min] threshold for not being independent. Can you make up for lost time ?

Dr Shepherd thinks so.

He found that a vigorous walking program 5 days a week made a big difference. Within a couple of months improvements were measurable.

• after 2 months a 13% improvement
• after 6 months a 17% improvement

This is like getting 10 years younger.

After a year you could 12 years younger.

However it has to be vigorous walking - just strolling is nice, will slow the decline but will not make you younger.