Muscle: The Currency of Longevity
Have you ever heard the phrase "muscle is the currency of longevity?” Building and maintaining muscle mass is crucial for a long, healthy, and functional life. Low levels of muscular fitness together with insufficient dietary intake are major risk factors for illness and mortality from all causes. Ultimately, muscle wasting contributes significantly to weakness, disability, increased hospitalization, immobility, and loss of independence.
Muscle helps regulate metabolism, including blood sugar and fat, and acts as an endocrine organ, secreting myokines that benefit other tissues, including the brain. Higher muscle mass is associated with increased survivability, lower risk of chronic disease, better cognitive function, and greater independence as we age.
Metabolic Regulation: Muscle is metabolically active, burning more calories and helping to regulate blood sugar and lipids (fats). The more muscle we have, the more calories we burn.
Endocrine Function: Muscles produce myokines, anti-inflammatory signaling molecules that have neuroprotective effects and improve overall health by influencing other tissues.
Functional Independence: Muscle mass supports strength, mobility, and balance, which are vital for performing daily activities and preventing falls, fractures, and the loss of independence that comes with age.
Disease Prevention: Higher muscle mass is linked to a lower risk of chronic conditions like diabetes and metabolic disorders.
Brain Health: Myokines from muscle can cross the blood-brain barrier, enhancing cognitive function and memory.
So, how do we build and, more importantly, maintain muscle?
Resistance/Strength Training: Activities like lifting weights, yoga, Pilates, and endurance build and maintain muscle. Everyone, regardless of age, can benefit from strength and cardiovascular training. The key is to find a training program and to follow it consistently (Hello, DeNovo Crossfit! We’ve got you!).
Use it or Lose it: Muscle mass naturally declines with age after peaking around age 30, making consistent strength training essential to counter sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass. Staying physically active, and fueling our bodies well, can help slow this process.
Eccentric Focus: Emphasizing the lowering portion of a movement can maximize muscle stretch and growth potential.
Full Range of Motion: Using a full range of motion during exercises also helps optimize muscle growth.
Nutrition: What we put into our bodies is also a HUGE part of maintaining muscle mass as we age (hey, wanna talk about protein?!). There is overwhelming clinical evidence that high dietary protein intake supports healthy aging.
At DeNovo, one of our core values is consistency; when you keep showing up, and when you keep that 80/20 focus on your nutrition, you get results. And those results lead to longevity, which I think is important to all of us. Investing in muscle health through regular strength and endurance training is like depositing into a "longevity account," allowing you to maintain a high quality of life, functional independence, and better health for the long term.
