This 93-year-old sprinter’s muscle could hold clues for healthy aging

A bounty of medals and trophies, including for her last world record. At 93, Emma Maria Mazzegna is a scientific marvel and has been racking up wins for decades. First as a student, then after stopping to raise children, at 53 back on the track, where she's raced for the four decades since. It's not that I love racing, she says, it still makes me nervous, but I like to put myself to the test. She still trains three times a week, running intervals of 50, 100 and sometimes even 200 and not simply fast for her age. At 91, she ran the 200 meters in 50.33 seconds, a world record for her age group. That performance caught the attention of scientists, and their research on her is challenging assumptions about how our muscles age. They've measured how efficiently her body uses oxygen and even took tiny samples of muscle from her thigh. The maximum oxygen consumption that we found, You know, the values are comparable to somebody in her 50s. So, I mean, this is fantastic. There's the muscle architecture. And her so-called slow muscle fibers that resist fatigue are unusually large, closer to the size of those of a woman in her 20s. Findings striking enough to put Emma on the cover of the Journal of Applied Physiology. With age, she's lost some of the fast fibers needed for explosive movement. But researchers say her powerful slow muscles seem to help compensate. Likely the secret to her resistance and speed. Scientists still don't know how much comes from genetics and how much from decades of training. Emma has her own theory. I always say if I'd been sitting on a sofa, I would have aged differently. Frankie says nobody needs to run world record times to benefit. You can really start, you know, by going out. Just go out for a walk. And then maybe the next beautiful day you go and walk a little bit faster. I think exercise is so powerful. At 93, Emma may be an extraordinary case. But the lesson researchers have so far drawn is, well, pretty ordinary. Keep moving. Megan Williams, CBC News, Padua.