Voluntary exercise and mild food restriction effectively retard the collagen biomarker of aging

Obesity and lack of physical exercise characterize increasing numbers of people in Western societies, resulting in increasing morbidity and mortality. Regular physical exercise, on the other hand, has been shown to be beneficial. Beneficial effects have also been shown in laboratory rodent studies--lifelong physical exercise increases the mean life span but not the maximum life span, while food restriction increases both life spans. We studied male Sprague-Dawley rats in order to further analyze these beneficial effects.

We compared voluntary running in wheels (RW) with food restriction to pair weight with RW (PW), and mild forced running in treadmill (TM)--all animals housed individually. Control groups were sedentary ad libitum-fed animals housed individually (S1) and four to a cage (S4). The collagen biomarker of aging was calculated as a composite parameter from thermal stability data for 5 (baseline), 15, 19 and 23 months of age.

In RW and PW, the increase in the composite parameter was retarded to the same extent. The retardation in TM was less efficient. S4 had the highest value for the composite parameter, together with the highest body weight and fat content. In groupwise comparisons, the composite parameter tended to predict survival in the groups up to the age of 23 months.

Voluntary running in wheels is more beneficial than mild-forced exercise on the treadmill. The composite parameter is a useful indicator of different interventions on aging rats.