Exercise, aging, and healing: New lab looks at how these go together

A new lab at the University of Prince Edward Island will explore why the body doesn't heal as quickly as it ages.

Last week UPEI's Skeletal Muscle Health and Adaptation Research Laboratory received $461,221 in startup funding from the federal and provincial governments and private sponsors.

Professor Adam Johnston's main focus of study is why older people don't heal as quickly as younger people. People lose skeletal-muscle mass as they age, said Johnston, but it's not clear why.

"One of the reasons this is thought to occur is you basically lose the ability to recover from those day-to-day small injuries," Johnston told CBC's Island Morning.

"This accumulates over time and so eventually we end up losing tissue. This impacts our day-to-day ability."

Exploring what is happening around muscles

Johnston hopes to get at why this happens by exploring how muscle tissues change depending on what else is going on in the body around them.

"What's in the environment of a young muscle versus an old muscle? What changes in the blood of a young person, in comparison to an older person?" he said.

"If we don't know what the problem is we can't begin to find solutions."

In particular, Johnston will look at how exercise affects muscle healing.

On a small scale, the funding will go towards buying specialized microscopes, a cell culture suite and equipment that will help researchers study gene and protein expression.

On a larger scale, it will go to equipment that measures muscle and exercise performance in human and animal subjects.

• MORE P.E.I. NEWS |Watershed group worries about 'loophole' in P.E.I.'s new Water Act
• MORE P.E.I. NEWS |Booze boundaries: Humble Barber now serving non-alcoholic beer after licence denied