Is Your Fate To Lose Muscle When You Age?

I came across a very interesting podcast between Peter Attia and Luc van Loon that was focused on the science of building muscle. It is rather long at over 2 and 1/2 hours and very technical, but it did a really great job of going over what we know and what we don't yet know about building lean body mass especially in older populations. 

I have included a link to the full podcast, HERE, but wanted to highlight what I felt were the most relevant parts.

• For a long time there has been this concept of 'Anabolic Resistance' implying that as you age, you become resistant to making lean muscle mass. This was assumed to be a build in process with aging. However, given new data, if you take an older individual and 'exercise' them and give them plenty of high quality protein in their diet, you can bring up their anabolic muscle building response to that exercise and protein to the level of a younger person. This means that losing muscle mass and the ability to grow muscles does not inherently decline as a function of aging. Instead, aging is a proxy for a more sedentary lifestyle with decreased activity and decreased protein which leads to the decreased lean muscle mass. Why is this so important? Because decreasing muscle mass leads to worse metabolic health, higher risk of falls, lower functional capacity, lower quality of life, and a shorter life. This shows that you can build that all important lean muscle mass at any age.

  
  

• Muscle mass is critical for maintaining the all important longevity metric of VO2 max. If your muscle deteriorates you can't move as well. Inevitably this will cause your cardiovascular health to deteriorate as reflected by a dwindling VO2 max. This will set off a cascade of other unwanted effects on all body systems including a deterioration of cognitive health, sexual health, mental health, etc.

  
  

• The loss of muscle in the older population doesn't occur in a slow curvilinear process as was once thought. Instead it happens more in stepwise drop offs, precipitated by periods of inactivity such as illness, hospital stays, and sedentary vacations. 

  
  

  • "age-related decline is not inevitable and that it is not a continuous slope of decline that reflects some physiologic process within the atrophying muscle, but instead it’s a series of discrete declines, each one precipitated by a period of inactivity" -Luc Van Loon

The take home. Your body can build muscle at any age given the right exercise and nutrition. Build lean muscle reserve now, delay decline, and then continue to build as you age.