Community Medicine and Anti-Aging:

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to establish a long-term pedometer-based physical activity program for a group of community-dwelling older people and examine the effects on health and Anti-Aging medical indicators using an Anti-Aging medical checkup. We report here on the findings in the first 5 months (21 weeks) of the in-progress program.Methods: Subjects in the present study were 43 healthy middle-aged and older adults (17 men, 26 women, mean age: 69.0±5.9 years; mean body mass index: 22.9±3.0kg/m2) in the Shimogyo district of Kyoto-city, Japan. Each subject was provided a pedometer and instructed to walk with a goal of steps per day. Further, to motivate subjects, newsletters were delivered every four weeks. Checkups were conducted at the start of the study and 21 weeks later.Results: The average number of steps taken during the first five months of the study was significantly higher than at the start of the study (at 5 months: increase of 1,506.1 steps, p‹0.001). Two subjects dropped out of the study. Significant improvements were seen in body weight (p‹0.05), BMI (p‹0.01), waist circumference (p‹0.001), fasting plasma glucose (p‹0.05), insulin (p‹0.05), and bone density increased significantly (p‹0.05). With regard to stress indicators, DHEA-s (p‹0.01) and DHEA-s/cortisol (p‹0.01) increased, and cortisol (p‹0.01) decreased. With regard to Anti-Aging indicators, DHEA-s increased (p‹0.01), functioning as a hormonal age indicator, and bone density increased, functioning as a bone age indicator. A significant positive correlation was observed between change in steps/day and change in IGF-I concentration(r=0.382, p‹0.05). The functional ages did not change. Subjects were divided into 3 groups based on the gap between their functional age and actual age. In regard to vascular age, the group with the lowest (diagnosed younger) age gap tended to walk more than the group with the highest (diagnosed older) age gap. (p=0.095).Conclusion: Although ours is a relatively simple program, significant improvements were noted in many health and Anti-Aging indicators among community-dwelling older adults. IGF-I concentration increased in parallel with increase of steps. Further, our study had a low drop-out rate. Given that all of our subjects were healthy from study initiation, functional ages did not change. However, telling subjects their vascular age may be related to the increase of steps/day. This program is on-going, and therefore further reports are expected to follow.