The effect of endurance exercise on bone dimensions, collagen, and calcium in the aged male rat.

Sixteen weeks of a relatively mild running program, started at 22 months of age, lowered the body weights of 26-month-old male rats to the level of 9-month-old rats and increased the weights and the collagen densities of hind limb bones to levels greater than those of 9-, 22-, and 26-month-old sedentary rats. The densities (g/cm3) and the calcium densities (mg/cm3) of the hind limb bones decreased with age and were restored to the 9-month level by training the elderly rats to run. These data suggest that exercise is capable of inducing a compensation for, or a reversal of, age-associated bone loss (osteoporosis) and restoring the bone mineral content in aged rats to the level of those of mature young adult animals.