Why Building Muscle Is the Best Medicine for Seniors: 6 Surprising Health Benefits!

When we think of medications, we don't really think about muscle as a medication, but muscle really is medicine. I know we like to think about if I have high blood pressure, I'm going to take a pill, or if I have osteoporosis, I'm going to try to take something to help improve my bone mass density. But by the end of this video, I'm going to convince you of the importance of having muscle mass and six reasons why muscle is just like medicine. Everyone welcome to the channel, Ed DeBoo, physical therapist from Integrated Physical Therapy in Bellingham, Washington. Reason number one, why muscle is medicine. It is to help prevent what we call sarcopenia. Now, a lot of people know about osteoporosis and osteopenia, which is a softening of the bone. But what about sarcopenia? Sarco is a root word for muscle. So we actually have a softening of the muscle as we get older. Now I understand that we're not going to be as strong as we were in our 50s, 60s, and beyond that we were in our 20s and 30s. However, the difference is though, is that about 15, 20% of seniors over the age of 60, 65 have sarcopenia, which is an additional wasting away of the muscle and the muscle fiber itself. But why is that so critical? It's because of the loss of function. The number one reason why seniors have to go to a nursing home is because of falls. And muscle plays a huge role in our ability to maintain and improve our balance. And what about functional activities? Going up and downstairs, putting luggage away in an overhead bin. These are all functional things that if you don't have muscle mass, it can definitely affect your life in a very negative way. So when it comes to strength training, if you're already going to the gym, great. Keep going. But if you're not quite sure where to start, I'll put a video link up here to a basic exercise program that you can do right here, right now at home with no special equipment that will at least get you started in the right direction. And don't forget to pick up your PDF five hidden reasons for pain. It's absolutely free. I'll put a link down below. You can grab it from my website. Number two is that strength training and muscle mass helps to improve and maintain bone mass density. So if you've been to the channel before, you know, I'm all about exercise, but I do a lot of videos on osteoporosis and whether or not you take the medication, you still need to be on a strengthening program. When we strength train with good intensity, what happens is the muscle connects to the tendon, which connects to the bone. So if I do it regularly and with enough stress, the signaling is for the bone to come back stronger. And so that is a way in which strength training can help to mitigate or at least maintain your bone mass density, regardless of whether you're taking the osteoporosis medication or not. In addition, I've written a book. It has 40 osteoporosis safe exercises that you can do right here at home and modifications on how to make the exercise easier and harder. And it's literally 10 minutes a day. People, everyone can give me 10 minutes a day. I'll put a link down below. You can find this on Amazon and probably at your local bookstore as well, too. Reason number three muscle is medicine is for cardiovascular health. The more muscle mass you have, and the more often you strength train, the less of a risk you have of cardiovascular disease muscle helps to burn more calories, even at rest. So if someone is battling their weight, what better way to burn more calories than to have more muscle mass, having trouble with hypertension, high blood pressure, having increased muscle mass is another way to help control and bring that blood pressure under control. Now, exercise of all kinds can help you to reduce your blood pressure, but there is one exercise that actually is a little bit more effective. What is it? I'll put a link right up here and you can check it out when you have a chance, but that's another simple exercise you can do at home to help control your blood pressure. Reason number four is fall prevention. Studies have shown that the stronger your lower legs are, the better balance that you have. What happens too is as we start to age, we lose type two muscle fibers first. We have type one and type two to simplify things. Type two are your fast twitch fibers. Those are ones that come to play for losing our balance. Now, remember we've been losing our balance and regaining our balance ever since we were little. But what happens is as we start to get older, we might stumble. And a lot of my clients will tell me it felt like it was going in slow motion because you are stumbling. You want to get your hands out there to protect yourself, but because you don't have those type two fibers anymore, you're not quite fast enough and boom down you go. So strength training definitely helped to decrease the loss of type two fibers. I ask all my clients to at least give me two minutes of balancing exercises every day. It could be while you're brushing your teeth. It could be while your coffee is brewing in the morning. If you're not sure what to do, I'll put a video link up here that just has some ideas on what you can do in terms of balance, but it's critical that we all work on balance every single day, even if it is just for a few minutes. Number five is a big one, mental health and cognition. Once again, if you look at the literature, a 30 minute walk is sometimes just as effective in some cases of depression as medication. So there is no doubt how our mind goes, our body goes and how our body goes. Our mind goes. Cognitive decline, dementia, Alzheimer's is a huge issue, especially as they all get older and there are no great medications. There is one medication I believe that just got approved that might slow down the loss of memory, but we have something at our disposal right here, right now, and that's exercise because with the greater muscle mass that we have, whatever is good for the body is also good for the brain. So when you think about getting your seven, eight, 10,000 steps a day, that's just not doing your body good, but it's actually helping your mental acuity and your cognition. And now for number six, number six is very, very important. Did you know that there are almost 97 million Americans that are pre-diabetic another 38 million are diabetic. And basically what that means is that they're having trouble regulating their blood sugar. So how does muscle fit into this? So every time we eat a meal, our blood glucose goes up, especially if the meal is high in carbohydrates. In response, the pancreas releases insulin, which is a hormone that helps to absorb the glucose from the bloodstream. But when the blood sugar rises too much and too often, it can damage the blood vessels, nerves, organs over time. Muscles play a huge role in helping to keep the blood sugar levels steady. When you build muscle, what you're doing is you're improving the insulin sensitivity of the body. What that means is the body becomes more sensitive to insulin. So the pancreas doesn't have to keep pumping out so much insulin to help bring the blood sugar back down. Because remember, elevated blood sugars for long periods of time can be pre-diabetic and then eventually in some cases turns into diabetes. Having more muscle mass is like a natural buffer, helping your body use the blood sugar more efficiently and helping to keep the blood glucose in check. Even a 10 minute walk after every meal has been shown to do a great job of helping to regulate elevated blood sugars that we all get after a meal. Many of my older clients are on a whole host of medications. And to be honest, there are side effects with certain medications. And if I ask them, they really don't want to be on so many medications if possible, because remember what polypharmacy is. So when you have five or more medications, sometimes the interactions of them can result in a loss of balance. All right, everyone. I hope I've convinced you about how important muscle is and muscle can be medicine. All right. Please let me know down below. If you have any questions, please share the video with any family or friends that may find it helpful. Keep exercising, stay strong, and I will see you at the next video. Thank you for watching.