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Exercise

When one twin exercises

Identical twins in Finland who shared the same sports and other physical activities as youngsters but different exercise habits as adults soon developed quite different bodies and brains.

french twins“One Twin Exercises, the Other Doesn’t” is the descriptive title of a fascinating NYT article. Here’s the gist of it:

Identical twins in Finland who shared the same sports and other physical activities as youngsters but different exercise habits as adults soon developed quite different bodies and brains.

To prove that exercise directly causes a change in people’s bodies, scientists must mount randomized controlled trials, during which one group of people works out while a control group does not. But these experiments are complicated and costly and, even in the best circumstances, cannot control for volunteers’ genetics and backgrounds…genetics and upbringing matter when it comes to exercise. 

All of this makes identical twins so valuable. So researchers turned to that country’s extensive FinnTwin16 database, which contained twins’ answers to questionnaires about their health and medical conditions, beginning at 16 and repeated every few years afterward.

Most of the pairs had maintained remarkably similar exercise routines, despite living apart. But eventually the researchers homed in on 10 pairs of male identical twins, one of whom regularly exercised, while the other did not…

The sedentary twins had lower endurance capacities, higher body fat percentages, and signs of insulin resistance, signaling the onset of metabolic problems. Interestingly, the twins tended to have very similar diets, whatever their workout routines.

The active twins had significantly more grey matter than the sedentary twins, especially in areas of the brain involved in motor control and coordination.

Presumably, all of these differences in the young men’s bodies and brains had developed during their few, brief years of divergent workouts, underscoring how rapidly and robustly exercising… the results strongly imply that the differences in the twin’s exercise habits caused the differences in their bodies.

…the findings also point out that genetics and environment “do not have to be” destiny when it comes to exercise habits…

It’s a very small study, but I would bet you’ll benefit from exercise and movement more than you might think you will.