令人震惊的新陈代谢新研究并没有让W&M的运动学家感到震惊，他几十年来一直表明，年龄并不是我们认为的因素
Michael Deschenes是威廉玛丽大学运动机能学与健康科学教授兼主席。 他的专长是神经肌肉系统，即连接大脑和肌肉的神经网络。在一个研究 published in Experimental Gerontology, Deschenes and a team of four W&M undergraduate co-authors examined the neuromuscular system during endurance training with the goal of learning how its response varies with age.
The team found that young tired muscles produce the same amount of force as old tired muscles after continual stimulation, meaning fatigue may make young muscles behave like aged ones.
William & 玛丽 News spoke with him about a recent headline-making study, which he was not affiliated with, that found one’s metabolism does not slow with middle age, as is the popular belief.
Let’s talk about this metabolism study that was just published in 科学． It’s been described as “groundbreaking” and “shocking” by the media, but your decades of research on age and exercise seem to demonstrate this exact point – that age really isn’t the reason we gain weight and slow down in middle age.
这样说听起来很自鸣得意，但结论对我来说一点也不意外。当我第一次看到新闻报道时，我想“哇！This is going to turn everything on its head.” 你可能会从标题中认为这些发现是惊天动地的——这项研究将完全重新定义这个领域，但结论正是我所预测的。
In fact, it’s what I have been finding throughout my research career: metabolic rate is going to parallel changes in muscle mass, which does not have the relationship to aging that people think.
例如，让我们看看生命的第一年，当你的新陈代谢率飙升。Well, that's when you're packing on all that muscle. Think of what you weigh when you're first born compared to what you weigh when you're a year old. But, if you think about it, for a good part of our adult lives, from age 20 to about 60, we basically maintain the same muscle mass. 这意味着我们的新陈代谢在这段时间也应该是一样的，这也是这项研究发现的。
媒体倾向于关注研究结果，但在这种情况下，这些方法对我来说非常吸引人。
绝对的。它值得成为一个里程碑式的研究因为他们的研究方法，因为它的范围。这才是真正让我震惊的。They had such a comprehensive dataset, that you can have a lot of confidence in their claims. 想想看，他们有6500人，年龄从8天到95岁不等，他们对每个人的新陈代谢率都有良好有效的测量。That in itself is remarkable, but the findings to me were not remarkable. 也就是说，这些发现对公众的理解至关重要。
What is so important for the public to understand?
The study underscores the point that your body is a working tool, and we forget that it was always meant to be a working tool. 它从来就不应该像一株盆栽植物一样整天坐在那里。Our lifestyle is what causes us to gain weight, and then we blame things like our aging muscles or our metabolism, but in reality our bodies are not designed to be sedentary.
我们生来就是工作工具，用来收集食物，抵御捕食者，建造住所，汲水。在人类的宏伟计划中，我们只是最近才成为这样一个久坐不动的物种——我们正遭受着由此带来的健康后果。
改变方向不需要花费太多。我们只需要在相当规律的基础上恢复一些运动，不是真正的剧烈运动，而是稳定的运动。我们在这项研究中看到的是，当你观察时间成分时，它们与我们一生中肌肉质量的增加和减少完全一致。
同样，第一年，我们得到了各种各样的组织，包括肌肉质量，肌肉质量是非常活跃的代谢。当你成年的时候，如果你是一个成年男性，你的肌肉质量大约是你体重的40%。如果你是一个成年女性,你的整个身体重量的33%。所以，它对你的代谢活动水平的贡献是巨大的。
When we start losing it, that's when we run into problems. Not just because we're not doing the exercise that we need to stay strong, but also because we lose muscle mass that can cause you to have problems with managing blood glucose, or develop osteoporosis, because strong muscles equals strong bones. 如果你不锻炼，你就不会关心自己的其他部分。
Let’s talk about that 60-year mark that the metabolism study outlines. What in your research led you to understand what this study demonstrates, that our metabolisms don’t start to slow until we hit age 60?
我听起来像坏了的唱片，但这都是关于锻炼。这就是问题所在。This comes back to what I say all the time, you have to maintain muscle mass as you get older. It is critical. This study just backs up what I’ve been saying, that it’s actually more important for older folks to exercise than younger folks.
例如，看看他们在研究中谈到的代谢率的变化。They break it into four categories: birth to one year old, which has an incredible increase in metabolic rate, which makes sense, because you're piling on all kinds of new muscle tissue.
然后是1岁到20岁，你的新陈代谢开始下降甚至停止，然后是20岁到60岁，它会保持40年的水平。It’s not until the final stage, after age 60, that it starts to come down. 如果你想想我们的神经肌肉系统，这一切都说得通。
60岁是我们开始失去更多骨骼肌的时候，因为那时我们开始看到细胞凋亡的开始，运动神经元的细胞死亡程序。When our motor neurons die, the muscle fibers they activate die as well. As we lose that muscle mass, our metabolic rate is going to go down.
But again, exercise can help restore that, or at least stop how rapidly it goes down. 你真的没办法阻止它，因为出于某种原因，自然原因，或者上帝的干预，不管是什么原因，60岁是你开始看到这些运动神经元死亡的时候随之而来的是肌肉质量的减少。
我们应该从他们和你的关于衰老的结论中得到什么？
对于老年人来说，尽可能保持肌肉质量是非常重要的。这就是为什么该领域的专家现在认为阻力训练，如举重，对老年人来说比有氧训练更重要。Maintaining that strength allows them to keep doing activities of daily living, like climbing stairs, getting in and out of cars, carrying groceries, etc.
这更广泛地适用于所有美国人。我从90年代中期开始研究运动的影响。这是他们第一次开出与健康有关的运动处方——这不是为奥运会训练，甚至不是为当地的大学代表队训练，而是为了保持健康。
We found that for this small amount of exercise, you gain the lion's share of benefit. 当我第一次开始这项研究时，只有不到25%的美国人做了你必须做的最低限度的运动来获得健康益处。这里20分钟，那里20分钟，我们说的是修剪草坪或在杂货店里走一圈。那是二三十年前的事了，而现在，只有23%的人在做最低限度的工作。
我们没有传达这个信息，或者至少人们没有接受这个信息。我们知道这需要付出什么，人们只是做不到，或者不想做。这就是我们作为一个领域失败的地方，让人们在照顾自己的身体上跳上船。I’m hoping this study will help drive that point home.
