A University of Iowa study is apparently the first to make a connection between a rare, hereditary premature aging disease and cell damage that comes from smoking. The study results point to possible therapeutic targets for smoking-related diseases.

The investigation found that a key protein that is lost in Werner’s syndrome is decreased in smokers with emphysema, and this decrease harms lung cells that normally heal wounds. The findings appear in the Feb. 6 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

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I wrote a few weeks ago that timing your rest periods between sets in the gym is important.  This leads me to today’s topic which is intensity in the gym.  Intensity in the gym means that you are training with focus, proper weight, proper technique, proper program design, and proper rest periods.  I’m going to address each one for you so that you can get the most out of your time in the gym.

Proper weight:  Proper weight means that you are challenged in the gym with the weight that you are lifting.  For example, if your repetition range is to be 8 to 10, then you should be hitting those targets.  You shouldn’t be able to do 25 reps.  This means that you are going way too light.  At the end of each set you should feel the muscles that you worked out.  Alternatively, you should be able to hit the minimum.  If you have the same target but can only bump out 3 reps, then you need to lose the ego and drop the weight to something more realistic.

Focus:  When you’re in the gym, you are there to workout.  Forget talking to your friends and wasting your time.  Focus at the task at hand and save the rest for before and after the gym.

Proper technique:  Proper lifting technical is important to make the most out of your workouts and prevent injuries.  If you lift too much weight you will struggle as your body will look to lift the weight whichever way possible.  This will hamper your improvements in the gym, and may possible cause joint and muscular injury that can set you back weeks or months in the gym.

Proper program design:  This means that you are in the gym with the purpose of attacking several muscle group in a row with a set out plan.  The worst thing besides not showing up is showing up and not knowing what to do.  You would probably be best to ask a professional for help and with proper guidance you will see that your improvements in the gym will be faster.

Proper rest periods:  Depending on the amount of reps that you are doing, typically the lower the number of reps the higher the weight and the higher the time that you need in between sets.  You will want to limit your time in between sets anywhere from 10 seconds up to about 3 minutes, on average.  It is important to respect these rest periods between the sets to keep the intensity up.  You don’t want to do a light set and then sit down for ten minutes in between each set talking to your friend or watching one of the tv’s in the gym.

F. Martinez

Cigarette smoke causes the same cellular defect seen in people with Werner’s syndrome — a rare genetic disease that makes people age very fast.

Smoking speeds the aging process, causing smokers to die about 10 years before their time. Now researchers may have found a clue to this process, giving them unexpected new paths to treatment.

The clue comes from the observation that smokers aren’t the only people who age too fast. In their 20s, people with a rare genetic disorder called Werner’s syndrome get gray hair, thin skin, and hoarse voices.

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An interesting paper from the owner of senescence.info and collegues: “Numerous microarray studies of aging have been conducted, yet given the noisy nature of gene expression changes with age, elucidating the transcriptional features of aging and how these relate to physiological, biochemical, and pathological changes remains a critical problem. … We performed a meta-analysis of age-related gene expression profiles using 27 datasets from mice, rats, and humans. Our results reveal several common signatures of aging, including 56 genes consistently overexpressed with age, the most significant of which was APOD, and 17 genes underexpressed with age. We characterized the biological processes associated with these signatures and found that age-related gene expression changes most notably involve an overexpression of inflammation and immune response genes and of genes associated with the lysosome. An underexpression of collagen genes and of genes associated with energy metabolism, particularly mitochondrial genes, as well as alterations in the expression of genes related to apoptosis, cell cycle, and cellular senescence biomarkers, were also observed. … We suggest these molecular signatures reflect a combination of degenerative processes but also transcriptional responses to the process of aging.” Supplementary data are available over at senescence.info.

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Aging is exactly an accumulation of biochemical damage and the resulting disarray caused by that damage. We all know that smoking is bad for you, but it seems that smoking causes some of the same effects as one of the genetic conditions that causes accelerated aging: “Smoking can accelerate the aging process and shorten the lifespan by an average of more than 10 years. We focused on what happens within the lungs because of the similar aging effects, including atherosclerotic diseases and cancer, seen in people with Werner’s syndrome and people who smoke … Werner’s syndrome involves a genetic mutation that causes a deficiency in what’s known as Werner’s syndrome protein. The protein normally helps repair DNA damage. Smoking does not appear to cause the same mutation, but our study showed that it does decrease Werner’s syndrome protein … The team also applied cigarette smoke extract to cultured lung fibroblasts taken from nonsmokers. They saw that Werner’s syndrome protein expression was decreased, and the cells had lost their ability to repair wounds. In contrast, when the team caused the lung fibroblasts in petri dishes to overexpress Werner’s syndrome protein, it had a protective effect and helped resist the damaging effects of cigarette smoke.”

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