Study: Exercise helps seniors excel in fitness

Four years ago, Sally Pritchard was healthy enough: She took no medications, could swim slowly and had no aches or pains.

Still, the newly retired teacher wanted to be more athletic. And when she saw an ad seeking research subjects for a physically demanding training program at the University of Washington and Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Seattle, it seemed like just the ticket.

It turned out that the regimen — 90 minutes of stretching, exercise on a treadmill and stationary bicycle, three times a week changed her life. Shortly after her participation in the seven-month program, she was fit enough to bicycle through Holland.

"I feel very empowered by it," said the 69-year-old Queen Anne resident. "I feel a lot stronger. Part of it is mental, as well as physical."

Pritchard was among 34 seniors in the recent Seattle study, which found that older people leave 20-somethings in the dust when it comes to improving their "exercise efficiency," a measure of how well the body uses oxygen, which directly affects stamina.

Previous research had suggested that much improvement wasn't possible for older people. Yet the Seattle participants improved an average of 30 percent in how their bodies responded to exercise, compared to a 2 percent improvement for the younger group.

"What was new and unexpected in our study was the disproportionately greater response to training in the elderly subjects," the VA and UW researchers reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Before the training program, for example, an older subject used as much oxygen to walk 3 miles per hour as a younger subject used to walk 3 ½ miles per hour. But after the conditioning, that disparity disappeared, the scientists reported.

That doesn't mean seniors need to exercise as hard as the ones in the study did. But it indicates that they can benefit greatly from exercise, even low levels of it: Wear a pedometer and take 10,000 steps a day, or about 5 miles, a regimen recommended by many health experts. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park farther than usual from your destination.

"The take-home message is to get out and walk," said Dr. Wayne Levy, a UW associate professor of cardiology, who co-wrote the study with Dr. John Stratton of the VA and Dr. Susie Woo of the UW.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers compared the results of training between the 34 older participants, age 65 to the late 70s, and 27 younger participants, in their 20s to early 30s. None of them exercised much before volunteering for the study.

As part of the study, all the subjects stretched, bicycled and ran or walked for a total of 90 minutes three times a week. After three to six months of supervised training, the older subjects used oxygen more efficiently and regained normal breathing after exercise more quickly. In fact, they were better than the younger subjects had been before the training.

"Our study confirms that aging does not preclude a response to training, as the elderly subjects were able to improve in all the same exercise parameters as their younger counterparts," the scientists reported.

Pritchard said she never dreamed she would improve so much, especially in the early weeks of training, when she didn't think her heart could beat any faster. But the program trainer insisted that all the participants, who had been screened for heart disease, reach 65 to 80 percent of their maximum heart rate and keep it there throughout each session.

"That was really hard," Pritchard said. "I was just sweating."

But after a few weeks, she said, she really got into it. The trainer was tough but reassuring. Pritchard's breathing improved. She was losing weight. She felt a responsibility to the project.

By the end of her program, the exercise was no longer such a chore, and her confidence soared. She eagerly accepted friends' invitation to bike through Holland for three weeks, including one 45-mile day.

Now, staying fit is "part of my mindset," Pritchard said.

"If I don't go for a week, I feel like I've been missing something. I just feel so much better when I go."

Warren King: 206-464-2247 or wking@seattletimes.com