Rejuvenation of Aged Muscle Stem Cells Through Exercise

Exclusion Criteria

• •Smoker: Tobacco use within the last 12 months.
• •Dieting or intending to diet.
• •Use of potential confounding medications, e.g. using ticlopidine, clopidogrel, dipyridamole, warfarin, heparin, enoxaparin and other blood thinners.
• •Coronary stents or any other medical condition for which aspirin cannot be temporarily withheld.
• •Use of hormone replacement medications.
• •Absolute contra-indications to exercise: Recent (\<6 months) acute cardiac event unstable angina, uncontrolled dysrhythmias causing symptoms or hemodynamic compromise, symptomatic aortic stenosis, uncontrolled symptomatic heart failure, acute pulmonary embolus, acute myocarditis or pericarditis, suspected or known dissecting aneurysm and acute systemic infection.
• •Relative contra-indications to exercise: Left main coronary stenosis, moderate stenotic valvular heart disease, outflow tract obstruction, high degree AV block, ventricular aneurysm, uncontrolled metabolic disease (e.g. diabetes, thyrotoxicosis, myxedema), uncontrolled pulmonary disease (e.g. severe COPD or pulmonary fibrosis), mental or physical impairment leading to inability to exercise adequately.
• •Have a confounding medical condition that is progressive and unstable such as HIV, Hepatitis C, active cancer, and/or taking medications for those conditions.
• •Unwillingness to be randomized to any one of two intervention groups, submit to skeletal muscle biopsies and all other study testing or continuously participate in a randomly assigned exercise training or program for three months.
• •Orthopedic limitations, musculoskeletal disease and/or injury.
• •Allergic to xylocaine.
• •Unwillingness to exercise at the Duke Center for Living during staff supervised times.