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Does Stretching Help Elderly Muscles – Only if NO is
Producing
Cumulative muscle
injury may contribute to the loss of muscle mass as we grow old
April 3, 2006 - If you're a mouse, then stretching
before you exercise is a good thing – even as long as two weeks before
your next cheese hunt or cat run. But if you're a senior citizen reading
this for yourself, it's a bit more complicated.
When most of us think of stretching, we're
imagining at a minimum jogging, and probably something more like
downhill skiing or sprints. But when University of Michigan researchers
Nicole Lockhart and Susan Brooks talk stretching, their real interest is
how to condition older folks' muscles so they'll eventually be willing
to do even a little exercise to garner all the benefits that will
follow.
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"The elderly are far more susceptible to
contraction-induced injury," notes Lockhart, lead author in two related
papers being presented in American Physiological Society sessions at
Experimental Biology in San Francisco. "Sometimes just by normal
activity or a sudden movement a leg will jut out too far and they'll
suffer a minor injury, but they'll be wary of further damage," she said.
Protect those muscles, as minor injuries may
be cumulative
Brooks, her adviser, added: "We think that
cumulative muscle injury may contribute to the loss of muscle mass as we
grow old. So protecting muscles at all times is a good thing. And
understanding how stretching increases resistance to injury will really
help to do this."
The team had previously shown that stretching
decreased muscle injury in mice when stretches were performed anywhere
from one hour to 14 days (yes days) prior to exercise. But they didn't
know why.
What is known is that while stretching muscles
produce nitric oxide (NO), a common signaling molecule. NO increases
blood flow and decreases force during submaximal contractions, and also
can modulate inflammation.
NO protects without stretching; but without NO,
stretching doesn't seem to protect
So they tested whether the anti-inflammatory
effects of NO were involved in the protection provided by stretching.
And the results were: mixed. Mice were given substances that either
increased or inhibited NO production. They found that increasing NO
reduced inflammation and other measures of injury following exercise by
half – even without prior stretching.
On the other hand, when NO production was
restricted, stretching an hour before exercise didn't reduce injury at
all.
They also tested whether low level inflammation
seen after stretching somehow primes muscles to decrease inflammation
following subsequent damaging exercise. They found that when an antibody
was administered that reduced the inflammation induced by stretching, no
protection following subsequent exercise was observed.
Insights, but not yet answers on mechanisms of
protection
"The results are somewhat contradictory," Brooks
offers, "because first nitric oxide appeared to be important by
inhibiting inflammation, but our second experiment showed that if you
prevent inflammation you don't get the protection afforded by
stretching.
Nevertheless, while translating animal studies to
human athletes, or elderly humans for that matter, is difficult, these
studies do provide important insights into how different modes of
training reduce muscle injury."
About source:
*Paper presentations: "NO is necessary and
sufficient for the protection from contraction-induced injury provided
by passive-stretch-conditioning," 12:30 p.m.- 3 p.m. Sunday April 2, APS
Physiology Exercise Responses and Training Section 237.19/board #C773.
Research was by Nicole C. Lockhart and Susan V. Brooks, Department of
Physiology and Institute of Gerontology, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor.
And, "The infiltration of neutrophils following
passive-stretch-conditioning is required for protection from
contraction-induced injury": 237.20/board #C774.
Funding: National Institute on Aging/NIH.
The American Physiological Society was founded in
1887 to foster basic and applied bioscience. The Bethesda,
Maryland-based society has more than 10,500 members and publishes 14
peer-reviewed journals containing almost 4,000 articles annually.
APS provides a wide range of research, educational
and career support and programming to further the contributions of
physiology to understanding the mechanisms of diseased and healthy
states. In May 2004, APS received the Presidential Award for Excellence
in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).
Experimental Biology is an annual scientific
meeting convened by the Federation of American Societies of Experimental
Biology, including the American Physiological Society (APS) and other
biomedical societies. The meeting features "nominated" lectures,
symposia, research presentations, awards, a job placement center, and an
exhibit of scientific equipment, supplies, and publications. This year's
participating Societies are APS, American Association of Anatomists,
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American
Society for Investigative Pathology, American Society for Nutritional
Sciences, and the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics.
A searchable online program for EB is at
http://www.faseb.org/meetings/eb2006/call/default.htm
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