Monday, March 18, 2024

Retain muscle mass as you age

Ageing comes with a myriad of effects on the body and one of them is the loss of muscles. For a majority of adults, they achieve optimal muscle mass during their late 30s to early 40s and from there they start having a gradual muscle mass loss. The loss goes on steadily into old age. This loss of muscle, strength and ability to work that is linked to ageing is referred to as sarcopenia.

Any serious loss of muscles mass should raise alarm as muscle mass and strength are highly related. Sarcopenia has many effects including ill health, poor quality of life and high health care costs incurred by the aged. It has been proven from research that a routine of resistance training workouts that result in rapid muscle growth can deal with sarcopenia. In addition, observing diet to ensure there is sufficient high-quality protein is crucial. To complement diet and exercises, the aged persons can consider making use of TB500, a substance that helps to keep fit and improve appearance.

So, what can you do to prevent, minimize or even turn around the negative effects of age-related muscle loss? Here are some practical, natural and easy methods you can use:

Increase the total protein that you eat
Protein is very useful for building and repairing muscle. The recommended protein per kilogram of body weight is 0.8g or 50g per day for men and women aged 19 and above. However, it has emerged from studies that 12% and 24% of men and women respectively aged over 70 eat far less than the recommended amount. Recent research has revealed that persons aged 65 years and above require higher levels of dietary proteins than the normally recommended amount. Healthy adults should consume between 1g and 1.2g/kg proteins per day while those with sarcopenia, need to take a slightly higher amount that is between 1.2kg and 1.5g/kg in a day.

Go for high quality proteins
All proteins are not created equal; some are richer in nutrients than others and play a crucial role in dealing with sarcopenia. Dietary proteins are constituted by many kinds of amino acids. There are majorly two types of amino acids-essential and non-essential amino acids. Essential amino acids must be got from protein-rich foods that contain them while the non-essential ones can be synthesized by the body using other amino acids. The amino acid leucine that preserves body muscles is an essential amino acid thus must be obtained from the food.

From a study done in 2010, it was established that eating leucine –enriched proteins promote manufacturing of muscle protein similarly in both the elderly and the young. Leucine is highly concentrated in animal foods such as beef, poultry, eggs, milk and others. Soya beans and other beans, nuts and seed contain minimal amounts. Some of the top protein food to have in your diet include: beef(grass-fed), lentils, raw cheese, raw milk,whey protein( from goat milk) and black (or other)beans.Other than maintaining healthy muscle mass, protein are essential for supporting tendons, ligament just to name a few body tissues.Protein also plays a great role in training as it aids muscle recovery, promote muscle making and act as a treatment for muscle ache.

Exercise
To keep of sarcopenia an inactive lifestyle is out of the question.Exercise comes in handy to persons with sarcopenia by enhancing strength, increasing the aerobic capacity and making of muscle protein. Resistance exercise is very significant for reducing weakness and increase strength in very aged persons. Daily exercise is great but where not possible, it can be taken thrice per week to minimize muscle loss.

Vitamin D
Low levels of Vitamin D can be associated with reduced muscle strength, high instability of the body, and disability among elderly persons. It has been observed that Vitamin D deficiency is very rampant among aged persons irrespective of the ethnic or racial backgrounds. Those suffering from Vitamin D deficiency can have supplementation of the same to enhance muscle function and mass.

Conclusion
Other ways of dealing with age-related muscle mass loss are increasing consumption of omega 3, checking hormonal imbalance, and increased consumption of anti-inflammatory foods such green leafy veggies and salmon among others. Other measures include reducing consumption of pro-inflammatory food such as highly processed foods.Reducing alcohol intake is also a great step towards keeping off sarcopenia. Quitting smoking is a great move as smoking is linked to several bad habits like reduced physical activity and poor nutrition.

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