Being Active at Old Age: Evolutionary Perspectives

Humans are found to be evolved for being active in their later years to fight off heart diseases and several other serious health problems, as per a study at Harvard, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "It's a widespread idea in Western societies that as we get older, it's normal to slow down, do less, and retire. Our message is the reverse: As we get older, it becomes even more important to stay physically active," says the study's lead author, Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

The study utilizes humans' ape cousins to compare the relevance. Wild apes commonly survive only 35 to 40 years with substantially less activity than most humans. This advocates that humans were evolutionarily selected to live longer and simultaneously be more physically active.

Physical Activity and Old age

It is well-known that physical inactivity leads to several harms to health such as excess fat storage, improper DNA repair processes, diabetes, cancer, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, depression, and many more.

Data states that modern-day hunter-gathers average about 135 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day. That is nearly 6 to 10 times more than a typical American.

This might explain why hunter-gathers who survive childhood tend to live about seven decades. However, a minimum of 10 or 20 minutes of physical activity per day is sufficient for an average human to lower the risk of premature death.

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"The key take-home point is that because we evolved to be active throughout our lives, our bodies need physical activity to age well. In the past, daily physical activity was necessary in order to survive, but today we have to choose to exercise, that is do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health and fitness," says Lieberman.

Source-Medindia