Reduce your biological age by eight years as scientists recommend the best exercise to do three times a week

LIFTING weights can make your body years younger, says a new study.

US scientists found that three one-hour strength training sessions a week could shave up to eight years off your biological age.

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Chronological age is simply how long you’ve been alive, while biological age reflects the health of your cells – essentially, how fast your body is wearing out.

While weightlifting has long been praised for improving bone and muscle health, this study of 4,800 participants revealed those who hit the weights had a lower biological age.

The NHS recommends that adults should be active every day and undertake 150 minutes of moderately intense activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity every week.

It also suggests strengthening activities that work all the major muscle groups, including the legs, back and abdomen, at least two days a week.

The study, published in the journal Biology, suggested strength training helped participants maintain longer telomeres – the protective caps on your DNA that naturally shrink with age.

Longer telomeres are tied to better health and longer life, and weightlifting seems to slow the ageing process at the cellular level

Larry Tucker, a professor in exercise sciences at Brigham Young University in the US, conducted the study and said the work shows a strong correlation, but cannot prove that weightlifting causes longer telomeres.

“Correlation does not mean causation. We can’t say that the lifting caused biological age to decrease,” he told The Telegraph.

“All kinds of strength exercises were counted and all types of exercise seem to be associated with longer telomeres.”

People in the study who lifted weights most often had telomeres that contained about 225 more pieces of DNA than those who did not lift weights.

“The findings showed that for every ten minutes spent on strength training per week, telomeres were 6.7 base pairs longer, on average,” the study states.

“Therefore, 90 minutes per week of strength training was predictive of telomeres that were 60.3 base pairs longer, on average.

“Because each year of chronological age was associated with telomeres that were 15.47 base pairs shorter in this national sample, 90 minutes per week of strength training was associated with 3.9 years less biological ageing, on average.

“This interpretation suggests that an hour of strength training three times per week (180 total minutes) was associated with 7.8 years less biological ageing.”

The scientists say weight training may be good for a person’s health and life expectancy because it tackles obesity, but it also reverses muscle loss, increases metabolism, and boosts cardiovascular health.

“By reducing the effects of chronic disease and metabolic risk factors, resistance training appears to slow the biological ageing process and reduce cell senescence, which is evidenced by longer telomeres,” Professor Tucker writes.