The Longevity & Brain Benefits of Vigorous Exercise | Dr. Rhonda Patrick

The greatest longevity benefit that comes comes from improving your VO2 max is from people starting from a below-average VO2 max and moving anywhere above average. So, even going from below-normal VO2 max for your age group and gender to a low-normal is associated with a 2.1-year increase in life expectancy .... Going from below-normal to high-normal VO2 max is associated with a 2.9-year increase in life expectancy...

When neurons in the brain are using more lactate, they're releasing a variety of neurotransmitters. They release more norepinephrine, for example, to help the brain working better to have more focus and attention. It also signals to the brain to make more brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) ... BDNF is the youth elixir for the brain, and exercising muscles produce lactate to help you bathe your brain in it.

VO2 max is a measure of maximal oxygen uptake, which reflects an individual's ability to utilize oxygen during exercise. It's considered one of the best indicators of cardiorespiratory fitness; and it's associated with improved healthspan, increased lifespan. Higher cardiorespiratory levels as measured by VO2 max have been consistently linked to reduced risk of mortality and longer lifespan.

In another study involving only men, for every 10-unit increase in VO2 max—so this would be then 10 mils per kilogram per minute—there was a 17% lower risk of death from cancer and a 11% lower all-cause mortality...

Another benefit of neurons in the brain using lactate as an energy source instead of glucose is it spares glucose. It's freeing up glucose to be used by another biochemical pathway known as the pentose phosphate pathway ... The less glucose is being taken up by neurons to be used as energy, the more it can be spared to be used in this pentose phosphate pathway to make glutathione.

Someone who is a committed exerciser, maybe you work out 3-5 days a week—how much of that time should be spent doing vigorous-intensity exercise. I would say, for VO2 max and other adaptations we're going to discuss, including the brain, about half of that exercise training time, I think, should be spent in vigorous exercise. So, again, you want to be at least 80% of your max heart rate or more.

There's casual exercisers, so people that work out maybe 2-3 times a week—they should probably spend more than half of their time doing more vigorous-intensity exercise.

There's another type of VO2 max training protocol—it's the 1-minute on/1-minute off protocol. This is where you perform 1-minute of intervals at the highest intensity you can do for 1-minute, and then it's followed by a 1-minute recovery period. And then you repeat this interval pattern 10 or maybe 5 times for about 25 minutes or so...

Vigorous-intensity exercise, high-intensity interval training, when that lactate production accumulates, it stimulates the expression and activity of glucose transporters known on the muscle known as GLUT-4 ... That lactate acts as a signaling molecule to increase the transport of glucose transporters on the muscle cells, and this then allows for more efficient uptake of glucose from the bloodstream into the muscle, even at rest. And so consequently, then, insulin sensitivity is also improved, and blood glucose levels are better regulated.

Skeletal muscle has the ability to take up a compound known as kynurenine and convert it into kynurenic acid ... This essentially reduces the amount of kynurenine available to then be transformed into other harmful metabolites, such as quinolinic acid, in the brain. So, quinolinic acid is a neurotoxin that plays a role in depression. It plays a role in schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disease.

On average, each unit increase in VO2 max—so that's 1 mL per kilogram per minute—is associated with a 45-day increase in life expectancy.

Vigorous-intensity exercise, like high-intensity interval training... it's one of the most powerful stimulators of mitochondrial biogenesis ... When you're producing greater amounts of lactate, that actually activates one of the major pathways that regulates mitochondrial biogenesis. It's called PGC-1alpha. And again, lactate's acting as a signal to produce more of that PGC-1alpha.

Another way that exercise improves mitochondrial health is through a process known as mitophagy ... Mitophagy is a type of autophagy which involves the selective removal of damaged or mitochondria from the cell or within the cell. This process really helps maintain mitochondrial quality control and overall cellular health...

Lactate signals to increase another growth factor at the blood-brain barrier called VEGF, and this is vascular endothelial growth factor. This helps grow new tiny vessels. It's called angiogenesis ... It helps them grow at the blood-brain barrier. It also helps repair damaged blood vessels.

Exercise intensity also affects the muscles' ability to produce other compounds known as myokines ... Myokines have anti-inflammatory, they have anti-cancer effects. They also participate in metabolic pathways involved in fat oxidation, glucose uptake ... Generally speaking, the greater the intensity of exercise, the greater the myokine release.

There are individuals who engage in more moderate-intensity, you know, steady-state zone 2 training, that do not experience significant improvements in VO2 max. In fact, research has shown that approximately 40% of people do not see a measurable increase in their VO2 max, even after engaging in guideline-based moderate-intensity exercise, which is about 2.5 hours of this type of exercise per week for several months.

2 years of vigorous exercise in 50-year-olds was able to reverse the aging of their hearts by as much as 20 years, effectively making their hearts look more like a 30-year-old...

As we age, our mitochondria become less efficient at producing energy—and this poses a problem for physical activity, but also just for normal functioning of our organs. Now that problem of mitochondria not producing enough energy can actually be overcome by increasing the mitochondrial volume, or what's called mitochondrial biogenesis. And exercise, particularly vigorous exercise, is one of the best ways to do that.

These circulating tumor cells are very sensitive to the shearing forces of blood flow. So when you exercise and blood flow increases, those circulating tumor cells, they actually die—and this happens in a dose-dependent manner. So, the more intensity exercise, the more sensitive they are to to cell death.

There might be some distinct metabolic benefits to exercise snacks particularly when timed around meals. So, performing these short bursts of exercise... directly before or after a meal is particularly effective in controlling blood sugar levels...

Zone 2 training is also sometimes known as aerobic-based training. It primarily targets aerobic energy systems and can be sustained for longer durations. We're talking an hour and more. Some experts define this type of training to be around 70-80% of maximum heart rate, possibly lower for people that are unfit. It's also defined by the talk test...

Women who were more physically active before being diagnosed with breast cancer had about a 23% reduced risk of dying from any cause and a 23% reduced risk of dying from breast cancer ... Those who were more active before being diagnosed with colorectal cancer had a 26% reduced risk of dying from any cause and about a 2% reduced risk of dying from colorectal cancer.

Just 3-4 minutes a day of this vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) has been shown to be associated with a 25-30% reduction in overall mortality risk. When that VILPA duration's increased to about 9 minutes a day, it's associated with a 50% reduction in cardiovascular-related mortality and a 40% reduction in cancer-related mortality.

It's my opinion that getting your heart rate to at least 80% max heart rate... is a really good place to be if you are targeting brain benefits.

Research has found that high-intensity interval training can enhance the muscles' ability to take up glucose and improve glucose transport capacity.