Get Moving: Exercise Reverses Signs of Skin Aging

Exercise is a great way to benefit your overall health. It can help you lose weight, keep weight off and decrease your risk for certain cardiovascular issues. And have we mentioned how good staying fit looks?

A recent study shows that not only will regular exercise extend life expectancy, but it's also likely to reverse signs of the aging process commonly seen in your skin.

Of course, it's only natural as we age for our skin to lose elasticity. Unfortunately, it means more wrinkles. Yet researchers from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada found that often times, the process of skin aging is due to the passage of time alone and not sun damage. As people hit 40, the protective, outer layer of skin, known as the stratum corneum, begins to thicken as the inner layer, known as the dermis, begins to thin, which creates a saggy look. 

Fortunately, researchers found that exercise may play some relieve in the skin's aging process. To test its effects, they recruited 29 men and women between the ages of 20 and 84, with half of the sample physically active for about three hours per week. The other half exercise around less than one hour per week. The recommended amount of exercise per week is around 2 hours and 30 minutes a day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The researchers took skin biopsies of the participant's buttocks where no sun exposure had occurred. Findings showed that older individuals typically had thicker outer layers than younger people.

However, findings also showed that the more active participants did not age as fast as the more sedentary ones. For example, more active adults had thinner and healthier stratum corneums and thicker dermis layers, with compositions similar to those in their 20s and 30s.

Those who had been primarily sedentary prior to the study--now in their 60s--where asked to start exercising two times a week. A follow-up showed that they, too, later showed signs of reverse aging in skin cells.

More information regarding the findings were presented at the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine's annual meeting in New Orleans, La.