Home > Health & Nutrition

Lifelong running lowers inflammation levels

warm-up jog

Being a lifelong runner will help curb inflammation later in life.

A new study out of the University of Copenhagen studied 15 athletes in their 60s who had been runners for nearly thirty years and 15 sedentary individuals who were of healthy weight, also in their 60s. They also studied 12 young trained athletes and 12 untrained young people.

The inflammatory levels of the group who had always been runners was notably better than the sedentary group and they also, unsurprisingly, had large quadricep muscles. This is important to note because inflammatory levels in aging populations

The findings are important because the sedentary group still saw higher inflammation levels than the trained group. It’s be assumed that lower inflammation levels in athletes was a result of lower levels of body fat, but with sedentary but otherwise healthy individuals to compare to, it suggests that exercise is lowering inflammation levels. This is noteworthy because it has been suggested in the past that excess weight raised inflammation levels.

Age-related changes in cholesterol, waist circumference, and VO2Max was also negated by exercise in the active group. Glucose control suffered in aging populations regardless of training.

Check out the latest buyer's guide:

The best trainers in Canada under $150

We curated the best performance trainers under $150 to meet your 2024 running goals, while staying on budget