Exercise

Listen!  Here's one more reason to get moving.  We all know the benefits of exercise: working out helps us manage our weight, boost our energy, stay heart-healthy, and enhance our mood.  And now, research at the University of Florida is suggesting that exercise may help prevent age-related hearing loss, so far, at least in mice.

The researchers divided mice into two groups: the mice in one group each had an exercise wheel, but the other mice did not.  They found that the sedentary mice lost important structures in the auditory system at a much higher rate than their exercising counterparts. According to their results published in the Journal of Neuroscience this resulted in a 20% hearing loss in the sedentary mice but only a 5% hearing loss in the active mice - that's huge!

Age-related hearing loss affects about 70% of adults age 70 and over, and is associated with loss of hair cells, capillaries and spiral ganglion in the cochlear (inner ear) system. These are the structures that sense sound, feed the hearing system with oxygen, and send the sound from the ear up to the brain.

The inner ear is a highly metabolic organ - it is always "on" and processing sound. It needs a lot of energy molecules.  To generate energy molecules the system must be well-fed with oxygen.  Researchers compared the running mice with the non-running mice to test how exercise affects the inner ear structures.  While it's fun to visualize tiny Fit-Bits, they researchers  monitored the exercise wheels to see how far the mice ran.

It's thought that age-related inflammation damages the capillaries and sensory hair cells, and that exercise protects against inflammation.  They found that the runner mice had about half the markers of inflammation than the couch potato mice.  We already know that there is a link between exercise and hearing loss, but this is the first study to show that regular exercise can actually prevent age-related hearing loss in mice.

This is likely to translate to people.  New studies are beginning to look for molecules that are released by exercise that protect biologic function in humans.  According to Dr. Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, a co-author of the UF study exercise likely releases some growth factors yet  to be discovered that maintain capillary. Exercise may also attenuate negative factors such as inflammation.

So, tie up your sneakers, put on some music, and move it!