OK, maybe its not eter
nal youth, but it’s definitely prolonged youth. Gretchen Reynolds reports in the New York Times on research conducted at King’s College in London that compared the vitality of serious recreational cyclists to that of people the same age who are much less active. The recruits for the research project were 85 men and 41 women between 55 and 79 who bicycle regularly and had what’s described as “a high degree of fitness.” Reynolds reports that each volunteer was given an array of physical and cognitive tests to determine endurance capacity, muscular mass and strength, pedaling power, metabolic health, balance, memory function, bone density and reflexes. They also took a so-called Timed Up and Go test, requiring them to stand up from a chair without using his or her arms, walk about 10 feet, returns and sits. Ready? The envelope please….Reynolds tells us that “on almost all measures, their physical functioning remained fairly stable across the decades and was much closer to that of young adults than of people their age. As a group, even the oldest cyclists had younger people’s levels of balance, reflexes, metabolic health and memory ability.” Wait, there’s more: Their Up and Go results were “well within the norm reported for healthy young adults.â€Â