SynthesisThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences2025
A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Highlights a Link Between Aerobic Fitness and Telomere Maintenance.
Synthesis in The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reframing Telomere Biology in Exercise Science: From Descriptive Metrics to Redox-Metabolic Mechanisms for Precision Healthy Aging (2000-2025).Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Physiological and Recovery Responses to Dietary Polyphenols in the Context of Exercise: Relevance for Muscle Aging and Sarcopenia.Nutrients · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cardiorespiratory fitness declines with aging and is a major risk factor of cardiometabolic diseases and early death. Although the benefits of regular exercise are well established, whether maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) is associated with biological aging remains unclear. Given that telomere shortening is a hallmark of aging, the purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to determine the association between VO2max and telomere length. Articles were retrieved from PubMed, Scopus, and ScienceDirect and deemed eligible if they: (i) involved human participants with relatively low and high VO2max values objectively assessed by pulmonary analysis; (ii) quantified telomere length using an established technique; and (iii) were peer-reviewed journal articles written in English. Relative to individuals with below-average VO2max based on age- and sex-adjusted norms, fit participants with relative VO2max values in the 70th percentile or higher possessed longer telomeres (standardized mean difference [95% confidence interval {CI}]: 0.36 [0.14-0.59], p = .002). A similar difference was observed between individuals with below-average VO2max and those above the 90th percentile (0.28 [0.03-0.53], p = .03). However, no statistically significant telomere length differences were observed between individuals in the 70th to 90th percentile compared to those above the 90th (-0.08 [-0.40 to 0.24], p = .62). The findings provide evidence linking metabolism to telomere biology. They encourage individuals to regularly engage in endurance exercise to attenuate telomere attrition and promote healthy biological aging. Importantly, the results suggest that extensive endurance training may not be required to protect the telomeres, rather moderate amounts of training may be sufficient to reach more achievable VO2max targets.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.