Baby boomer muscle study looks at exercise and diet
An Australian university research project to keep baby boomers fit and healthy aims at combining the right exercises with the right nutrition to maintain and build muscle shape.
RMIT University’s Professor John Hawley, said that “there are lots of people who say just give them drugs and hormone replacement. I say let’s do things that are not necessarily risky or expensive, primary interventions rather than secondary ones”.
“The only way you can build new muscle is if you generate proteins at a faster rate than they are being degraded. All of us from our early 50s see a decrease in muscle mass. It happens even in people who do resistance training”.
Professor Hawley told The Australian newspaper that, “the training only attenuates the decline and is not enough to really help muscle mass without specialised nutrition that emphasises protein intake.
“People undertaking resistance training and combining it with nutrition are going to be in much better shape, especially women and the elderly”.
The project will include a 24 week study of between 50 and 60 elderly men and women with one group doing exercise only, and the other group doing a combination of both exercise and special diet. Detailed muscle measurements will be taken at the conclusion of the study period.
