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Exercise When You're Young Prevents Osteoporosis When You're Old

X-Ray (via diff_sky)

Add one more reason to the long list of reasons Michelle Obama is right about the seriousness of getting people, particularly kids, up and moving: new research shows that exercise when you're young has a disproportionate impact on your future bone health. In the study, 18 and 19-year-olds who participated in sports or who'd been athletes at some point in the past six year years earlier had markedly denser bones than subjects who weren't athletes. The researchers also looked at the bone density of 75-year-old men. Those who had played sports three or more times a week at some point between the ages of 10 and 30, still, all those years later, had greater bone density. "The bones respond best when you're young, and if you train and load them with your own bodyweight during these years, it has a stimulating effect on their development," said the study author.