Why You Need HIIT as an Anti-Aging Strategy
Cells undergo damage during their normal daily function, when they can enter a “senescent” state, which means that they stop dividing, but don’t die. Some people call them “zombie cells” for simplicity.
You’ve probably heard of apoptosis - programmed cell death, which is a tightly controlled mechanism by which cells self-destruct in response to specific signal, such as DNA damage, oxidative stress, or developmental cues. It involves a cascade of molecular events, leading to the orderly elimination of the cell without causing inflammation.
So apoptosis is a good thing. It serves to remove damaged, unnecessary, or potentially harmful cells from the body.
Senescent cells, on the other hand, are cells that enter a state of permanent growth arrest, meaning they stop dividing but remain metabolically active.
Senescence is triggered by stressors like DNA damage (read: aging), telomere shortening, or oncogenic signals. These cells often secrete a mix of pro-inflammatory molecules.
So these senescent cells release inflammatory signals that disrupt the environment around them. And unfortunately, as they stick around, they build up as we age, fueling contributing to age-related decline.
We know that exercise in general is good for the body, but…
Is there a specific type of exercise that targets zombie cells?
Different forms of exercise have distinct outcomes in the body: walking primarily burns fat. Lifting weights builds muscle, which is great on so many levels.
High Intensity Interval Training makes us go into anaerobic energy production, which creates specific metabolic signals that help us clear senescence.
A Taiwanese study looked at 2 groups of athletes: one group was performing steady state cardio, while the other one did HIIT. Both workouts were matched for accumulated output.
When they performed biopsies on their muscles they found that the biomarkers of cellular aging dropped by 57% in the 2nd group in the 24 hours after the HIIT session. This suggests that their session had effectively cleared away many of these senescent cells, essentially nudging the muscle tissue into a state that appears to have a younger biological age.
In contrast, moderate-intensity steady-state exercise produced minimal changes in these cellular markers — despite participants performing the same amount of total work.
Why HIIT works as an anti-aging tool:
HIIT causes rapid lactate production. Your body shifts into acidosis, plus undergoes oxidative stress from the high intensity effort, both of which signal the immune system to release macrophages and infiltrate the muscle tissue. Macrophages promote cellular repair and gobble up cellular debris.
In Conclusion:
Make sure to include some sort of HIIT training at least once a week to slow down age-related decline.
One important note is that the level of effort should be high, it should get uncomfortable - the discomfort of HIIT is a necessary cellular signal to trigger the desired immune system’s response.
