Influence of physical exercise on aging rats: II. Life-long exercise delays aging of tail tendon collagen

Regular physical exercise has been shown to have a number of benefits compared with sedentary behaviour, such as delaying a number of aging changes and increasing the life expectancy but not the maximum lifespan. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of physical exercise on the connect...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mechanisms of ageing and development 1996-07, Vol.88 (3), p.139-148
Main Authors: Viidik, Andrus, Nielsen, Hanne Melgaard, Skalicky, Monika
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Aging - metabolism
Analysis of Variance
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Biomechanical Phenomena
Biomechanics
Collagen
Collagen - metabolism
Connective tissue
Cross-linking
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Male
Physical Conditioning, Animal - physiology
Physical training
Rat
Rats
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Striated muscle. Tendons
Tail
Temperature
Tendon
Tendons - metabolism
Thermal stability
Time Factors
Vertebrates: osteoarticular system, musculoskeletal system
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Summary:Regular physical exercise has been shown to have a number of benefits compared with sedentary behaviour, such as delaying a number of aging changes and increasing the life expectancy but not the maximum lifespan. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of physical exercise on the connective tissues of the body, especially systemic effects. We trained male Sprague-Dawley rats in a treadmill from the age of 5 months to 23 months. We analyzed the effects of training on tail tendons with respect to thermal stability of collagen and biomechanical properties of tendon bundles. Although tail tendons are attached to muscles, the are not weight-bearing as limb muscle tendons and can, therefore, be considered to be subjected mainly to systemic effects. The thermal stability of tail tendon collagen was significantly lower or ‘younger’ for the trained group compared with the sedentary one. The biomechanical parameters were likewise ‘younger’ with respect to maximum stress, although considerably stiffer compared with a 5-month-old base-line group. This suggests that there are several mechanisms, elicited by physical excercise, that act on the connective tissues. It can be concluded that life-long physical exercise has a beneficial influence on the connective tissues of the maturing and aging organism.
ISSN:0047-6374
1872-6216
DOI:10.1016/0047-6374(96)01729-0