Use It, Don't Lose It

Sometimes all it takes is a few words from a stranger to make me straighten up and fly right. Here are some words I came across the other day that might just do that for you: "So many of what we thought were symptoms of aging are actually symptoms of disuse."

That's the view of Dr. Pamela Peeke, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and it reflects science's new understanding of the aging process. Namely, that a moderate exercise routine can hold off the natural degeneration of muscles and metabolism.

The magic number is 50. That's the age at which the degeneration begins. Every 10 years thereafter, we lose six pounds of muscle, which triggers a whole sequence of effects: metabolism drops, we gain weight, we become more vulnerable to diabetes, heart disease, and other age-related ailments. That's all on one side of the scale; on the other, a half-hour of exercise a few times a week. Take your pick.

Some years back, I looked into this whole subject during a visit to Boston. At the time, Massachusetts was a national leader in encouraging older people to start exercising. The state boasted walking clubs for the elderly with such names as the Morning Glories of East Long Meadow and the Harwich Happy Hoofers. And it sponsored statewide events for the over-50 crowd, including walks and sports competitions.

I stopped by the Kit Clark senior center where I watched a group of women at their four-times-a-week exercise class. Legs and arms moved slowly, but they moved. "I used to sit home and watch TV," one of them told me later. "People at the center pestered me to try the class. It helps me get around better, and I just feel better." She was 87 years old.

Later that day, I drove over to the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged, where some of the most important studies of the effects of exercise had been conducted. I talked with a patient named Ed who had arrived there five years earlier, physically deteriorated and depressed. The first thing he said to me was, "Feel this bicep." It was hard as a rock. The muscles in his neck and chest had developed to the point where he had to change his shirt size. "I was popping buttons," he said. He still had to use a walker, but he was as proud of himself and as chipper as he could be. As so often happens, his depression had lifted as his physical state improved.

The dramatic change in Ed's life had the most prosaic of causes: a regular program of arm and leg presses and knee lifts. When I met him, he was 89 years old.

'Nough said.

Unless, of course, you have something to add.

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Robert W. Stock, a New York Times alumnus, is a writer and editor based in New York.