eli5 – If our cells only turn a certain amount of times before we die. Does causing micro damage from resistance training shorten our lifespan?

Question

I’m not even sure how to put into words my question but I’ll try.

From what I understand telomeres shorten during cell turnover which causes ageing. Therefore do activities that cause cellular damage like resistance training, tattoo or laser resurfacing etc shorten your lifespan or cause you to age?

In: 36

Answer 1

The problem here is you’re talking about to different things. Exercise causes cells do die, but because it damaged the cell. Aging happens because of changes to the DNA, not the cell itself. Basically with time, DNA changes and gets bad at replicating (telomeres shortening), so cells don’t replicate and create new cells as they used to. When exercising, you damaged cells, but it doesn’t affect your DNA, so it has no effect on aging. You’re fine!