Is your body ageing well?

THERE is little doubt that we are living longer but the real question is, are we living well?

Department of Health reports show that life expectancy of Irish people has seen a rapid and unprecedented increase in the past 10 years: men can now expect to live until 76.8 years while women’s longevity extends to 81.6 years, compared to 64.5 and 67.1 years respectively 60 years ago.

But your age only tells part of the story when it comes to your health.

What matters, say experts, is how well your body is withstanding the ravages of time.

With this in mind scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology developed a simple test to estimate your ‘fitness age’, or how effectively your body is functioning for its years. Lead author of the study, Professor Ulrik Wisloff, director of the KG Jebsen Centre of Exercise in Medicine, says the low-tech calculation is “the single best predictor of current and future health”.

After evaluating the fitness, weight and health measurements of almost 5,000 subjects between the ages of 20 and 90, he and his team came up with an accurate formula to estimate someone’s maximal oxygen uptake, or VO2 Max, a measure of how efficiently the body delivers oxygen to cells.

Although VO2 Max declines with advancing years, the drop can be slowed with regular exercise. And a favourable VO2 Max for your age is linked to a host of health benefits, not least better cardiovascular function and less risk of heart disease and health problems linked to obesity. It correlates closely with longevity and is a strong indicator of physical youthfulness or ageing.

Outlining their findings in the journal Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, the researchers say all you need is your waist circumference (in centimetres), resting heart rate (taken after sitting quietly for 10 minutes), details of how often and how intensely you exercise and your age and sex. Enter the details online http://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/vo2max and, hey presto!, you are informed how old you are in gym years.

Jamie Timmons, professor of systems biology at Loughborough University in Britian, says the new test looks to be a cheap and effective measure of health. “It is a method comparing yourself with the average fitness in each age group which is very useful,” he says. “Your level of fitness does correlate with disease risk and your maximal oxygen uptake is linked to your risk of death.”

How fit you are is increasingly thought to be a stronger predictor of general wellness than, say, weight or BMI alone.

Adults aged 60-plus with good aerobic fitness lived longer than unfit people of the same age, regardless of how much body fat they were carrying in one study at the University of South Carolina. Others have linked physical fitness to lower levels of high cholesterol, raised blood pressure and osteoporosis.

“The lower your VO2 max or cardiorespiratory fitness, the greater the risk is of you developing cardiovascular and heart disease,” says Dr John Babraj, lecturer in sport and exercise science at the University of Abertay.

“A low level of fitness is also associated with longer stays in hospitals following surgery in older people as well as a greater propensity for other conditions like diabetes.”

Even the Norwegian scientists admit their calculator is not scientifically exact, but they say it provides a useful “rough estimate of cardio-respiratory fitness”.

A 45-year-old man who exercises moderately and has a 36-inch waistband and a resting heart rate of 72 beats per minute would have a fitness age of 55.

Researchers came across one 70-year-old subject with a fitness age of 20. And my own result was a welcome surprise. My estimated V02 Max is 49 and my ‘fitness age’ is 21, infinitely preferable to my chronological age given that my 45th birthday is looming.

But the best news is you can reverse the fitness clock if you step up the frequency and intensity of your workouts. “We know from countless studies that exercising several times a week can improve your longevity,” says sports scientist Dearbhla McCullough who has worked with numerous top Irish athletes.

“It also has a powerful impact on the mind and your attitude to life. You feel younger and you have the potential to live longer if you are fit for your age.”