As we age, we lose muscle mass. Sarah Klein writes for the Washington Post on the how building your muscles both protects you from falls and bone breaks and also reduces your risk of infection.
Loss of muscle begins early. Every ten years, beginning at 30 we lose roughly three to five percent of our muscle mass. By the time we are 60, if we do not continue to build our muscles, it can become harder to move.
To improve your quality of life as you age, it’s important to build muscle mass. Building muscle mass reduces your risk of heart disease. It will also reduce your risk of sepsis, along with urinary tract, skin, respiratory and other infections.
Having more muscle mass is associated with a stronger immune system. Researchers cannot show cause and effect between having more muscle mass and a stronger immune system. But, in their study of tens of thousands of people, the association between the two was evident.
Experts say the association betwen muscle mass and a strong immune system makes sense. The association is similar to the effect of exercise. Exercise also stresses your system, forces your cells to adapt to the stress, and makes your body more resilient.
Exercise is the key to building muscle mass and potentially reducing your infection risk. Strength training reduces inflammation. So strength training helps build muscle tissue. Changes to diet could also help, but protein shakes are of little benefit.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- Don’t ice your sore muscles
- Protein helps older adults maintain muscle mass
- Muscle matters, but protein shakes matter much less
- Build muscle and substantially reduce your risk of heart disease
- Exercise can slow down the aging of your heart and muscles substantially
