Molecular Mechanisms of Exercise and Healthspan

Dear Colleagues,

Exercise is increasingly being recognized as a broadly effective intervention for the preservation of long-term functionality during the aging process, leading to the popularization of the phase, “exercise is medicine”. Chronic exercise lowers the risk of many age-related diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and several forms of cancer. Exercise is also generally thought to preserve basic mobility, cognitive function, and circadian rhythms, as well as contributing to psychological health. Despite the many benefits of chronic exercise, the mechanistic requirements for these benefits to accrue are still not fully understood, and are a highly active research topic. As many patients are unable to execute demanding exercise programs, the identification of downstream mechanistic targets to pharmaceutically deliver the benefits of chronic exercise has a transformative potential for the treatment of age-related disease and the maintenance of healthy aging. In this topic, we examine recent findings in diverse model systems that increase our understanding of the molecular outputs of exercise, as well as their requirements for the myriad benefits that exercise provides. This topic will bridge several disciplines that have important contributions to make to this experimental area. These will include data from human studies, from genetic interventions in animal models, and the contribution of diet or various dietary supplements to modulate the impact of exercise. In addition to developing knowledge of how to modulate or optimize the effects of exercise, we will also collect findings related to mechanistic impact on various disease models, and findings related to systemic interactions at both the organ and cellular level.

Dr. Robert Wessells
Prof. Dr. Zhen Yan
Topic Editors