Dr. Rhonda Patrick

So that's the brain.

We can talk about that because exercise also affects that.

But the heart, you know, it does get stiffer and it shrinks over time.

And depending on how much you exercise, the percentage can change.

And one of the biggest reasons for the stiffening of the heart is actually taking in a lot of refined added sugar.

So...

Sugar, if it's not immediately taken up into your muscles, which is what exercise does, it really opens the gates and allows glucose to come into your muscles.

If you're not exercising, even after you make insulin and, of course, you're going to take some into adipose tissue, some into muscle, you're going to have a lot of glucose around in your vascular system.

And what happens is there's a reaction that happens on the molecular level where the glucose interacts with collagen that lines the myocardium and the pericardium around your heart.

And that collagen becomes stiffer when it reacts with glucose.

And that collagen is there forever.

This is something that's around forever.

And so that's why exercise is so, so important for increasing the flexibility of your heart because it's getting that glucose out of your vascular system, out of reacting with the collagen surrounding not only your blood vessels that causes hypertension, but your heart, right?

And so I just think that's the most compelling and...

just really encouraging study for individuals that are middle age and really have never exercised.

that they can actually reverse the aging of their heart by 20 years.

And so, and this is what I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about doing the DNA tests, the epigenetic tests that has all the statistical noise.

I'm talking about actual structural changes in the heart, right?

So that to me would be the best thing that you can do.