Does regular athletic exercise delay age-related changes in muscle structure; a longitudinal study

One of the biggest challenges facing contemporary society is decreased mobility of, and increased cost of healthcare for, the elderly. Master athletes remain active into old age and studying this population can unravel the impact of ageing on mobility loss in old age, not biased by reduced physical activity.

Aims and objectives:

The increasing proportion of older people in the UK puts the healthcare system under increasing pressure. Reduced mobility as a consequence of age-related muscle wasting and dysfunction is perhaps the most important factor contributing to the poor quality of life in old age and is primarily caused by reduced physical activity2. Indeed, increasing physical activity improves muscle mass and function even in the oldest old3, while bed rest or prolonged sedentary behaviour induces muscle wasting. The aim of the study is to disentangle the contribution of disuse and ageing per se on the age-related muscle wasting and dysfunction to inform interventions and guidelines to extend ‘healthy life years’.

Master athletes remain exceptionally active into old age and are a unique model to study ageing, not biased by reduced physical activity. There are three world-leading components to our proposed studies:

1. We have collected skeletal muscle biopsy samples from the same research participants in 2002 and 2012 that give us the unique opportunity to assess longitudinal, rather than cross-sectional changes in muscle morphology during ageing. Only one study exists5 that looked at longitudinal changes in muscle morphology in ageing non-athletes, but it did not consider the level of physical activity.

2. Some of the master athletes undertook a 6-month resistance-training programme in 2002 that improved muscle and athletic performance, and we can assess 1) the impact of this programme on muscle morphology and 2) to what extent the training-induced changes are retained in the next 9.5 years.

3. We can match the physical performance to muscle biopsy data, something that has never been done before. In addition to the morphological changes during ageing, there is a reduction in force generating capacity and shortening velocity in isolated muscle fibres6. Part of this may be due to disuse as exercise has been shown to improve force and velocity in single muscle fibres7. We will therefore perform single muscle fibre mechanics to determine whether the master athletes have better muscle quality than age-matched controls. This information will be linked to muscle function data held by our collaborators in Finland (Dr Korhonen).

The supervisory team for this project will be Prof Hans Degens, and Mr Jamie McPhee

The closing date for applications is 31st January 2017.
To apply, please use the form on our web page: http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/postgraduate-research-course/ - please note, CVs alone will not be accepted.

For informal enquiries, please contact: [Email Address Removed]
Please quote the Project Reference in all correspondence.