Key Takeaways

• Muscle tissue is crucial for maintaining good blood glucose control.

• Muscles also help to maintain a healthy balance of triglycerides and cholesterol in the blood.

• Increased muscle mass is linked to a longer lifespan and a reduced risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

• Muscle mass is also important for preventing frailty, disability, and dependence in older adults.

• Resistance training (such as weight lifting) is the best way to increase your muscle mass.

• To build muscle tissue, getting enough protein in the diet is important.

• Sleep and stress are other lifestyle factors that can impact your muscle mass.

The Role of Muscles in Metabolic Health

Metabolic health refers to how your body uses and stores energy. When a person is in good metabolic health, then their body is able to effectively process glucose after a meal, and blood sugar levels don’t spike. In addition, their body is able to process dietary fats without creating high levels of triglycerides.

Muscle tissue is crucial for maintaining your metabolic health. In fact, muscles play several different roles in your metabolism.

Metabolic Functions of Muscle Tissue

Muscle tissue affects your metabolic health in a few different ways:

• Muscle tissue takes up a lot of glucose from the bloodstream – more than any other tissue. This helps to prevent blood sugar levels from rising too high.

• It takes a lot of energy to maintain muscle tissue, even at rest. Active muscles use even more energy. Because of this, muscle tissue helps to maintain energy balance in the body and prevent weight gain, by increasing the resting metabolic rate.

• Active muscle tissue also burns fats for energy, leading to a reduction in levels of triglycerides in the blood. In addition, muscle activity alters the activity of certain enzymes, leading to an increase in the levels of HDL (“good” cholesterol).

• Muscle tissue helps to maintain the body’s insulin sensitivity and prevent insulin resistance from developing.

In all of these ways, muscle tissue is crucial for maintaining good metabolic health.

Impact of Muscle Mass on Chronic Diseases

With muscle tissue playing such a variety of roles in metabolism, it’s not surprising that your muscle mass has an impact on your risk of chronic diseases.

Studies have shown that people with lower muscle mass have a significantly increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes, compared to those with higher muscle mass. Muscle tissue helps to prevent diabetes in several different ways: 

• Muscle tissue helps to maintain the body’s sensitivity to insulin, which is the hormone that tells body tissues to take up sugar from the bloodstream. In people with type 2 diabetes, the tissues have become resistant to the effects of insulin.

• Muscle tissue has a high need for energy, so it takes up a lot of sugar from the bloodstream. This helps to keep blood sugar levels from rising too high. 

• Because muscle tissue uses so much energy, it also helps to prevent weight gain. Being overweight is strongly associated with the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

In addition to type 2 diabetes, increased muscle mass can also help to prevent heart disease. In fact, one study of people over age 45 found that those with high muscle mass had an 81% lower risk of a heart attack over the next 10 years, compared to those with low muscle mass. This is likely due to the effect of muscle tissue on cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Research also indicates that increased muscle mass correlates with reduced levels of chronic inflammation, which in turn reduces heart disease risk.

Muscles and Longevity

Almost everyone is interested in longevity. If you’d like to live a long life, it’s essential to ensure that you have enough muscle mass. There’s a strong link between higher muscle mass and a longer lifespan.

Recommended Reading: Muscles and Ageing

Muscle Mass as a Predictor of Lifespan

Multiple scientific studies have demonstrated that people with higher muscle mass have a significantly lower risk of death and a longer lifespan than those with lower muscle mass. In fact, one study of people over age 80 found that those with a higher muscle mass had a 50% lower risk of death than those with less muscle mass.

This is likely because muscle mass helps to maintain metabolic health. The damage caused by high blood sugar levels accumulates over time throughout the body. Those with higher muscle mass are less likely to experience high blood sugar. In addition, higher muscle mass reduces the levels of chronic inflammation in the body, which is another factor that can cause damage to virtually every body system.

While calendar years pass at the same rate for everyone, the rate of aging differs from person to person. This is referred to as your “biological age.” It’s often measured by checking the length of your telomeres. These are caps on the ends of your chromosomes, which gradually grow shorter as you age. People with longer telomeres are biologically younger, while those with shorter telomeres are biologically older.

Multiple studies have found that people with higher muscle mass have significantly longer telomeres than those with lower muscle mass. In fact, people who regularly do strength training to build muscle mass have been found to have a biological age that’s 3.9 years younger than those who don’t do strength training. This correlates to a longer lifespan.

Muscle's Role in Preventing Age-Related Decline

Increased muscle mass doesn’t just help you to live a longer life – it also helps to maintain the quality of your life. Most people want to be active and vibrant during their older years, rather than being disabled and in pain. 

To prevent frailty and preserve your ability to live independently, muscle mass is crucial. Studies have shown that adults over age 65 who have low muscle mass are more than three times more likely to lose their ability to live independently, compared to those with higher muscle mass.

By helping to maintain your metabolic health and reduce levels of chronic inflammation, higher muscle mass also helps you to be more resilient to illness. Although you may still get sick from time to time, those with increased muscle mass are better able to recover from illness and injury. In fact, studies have shown that those who have low muscle mass before a surgical procedure recover more slowly after surgery and have an increased risk for postoperative complications.

Strategies to Build and Maintain Muscle

It’s clear that muscle mass is very important for health and longevity. Fortunately, if you currently have low muscle mass, there are ways to increase it. Building more muscle mass will improve your metabolic health and give you a better chance of living a long life.

1. Focus on resistance training 

The most important factor for building muscle mass is resistance training, also known as strength training. This may involve lifting weights, pulling against resistance bands, or bodyweight exercises.

During a workout, your muscle tissues experience damage. This may sound concerning, but it’s actually a good thing – the damage to muscle tissue from a workout is what triggers the muscle cells to add extra proteins and get bigger and stronger. This is why resistance training is so powerful at helping you to build muscle.

Cardiovascular exercise – or “cardio” – is the type of exercise that makes your heart beat faster and your breathing speed up. While this type of exercise generally doesn’t build much muscle tissue, it’s still an important part of your overall training plan. Cardio helps to maintain your heart health, reduce levels of chronic inflammation, and even improve your mental health. To maintain good overall health, you need to do enough strength training to build or maintain good muscle mass, but it’s also crucial to include cardio.

Remember that it’s also important to incorporate rest days into your training schedule. The process of building muscle tissue actually occurs during the rest period after a workout, as the muscles recover from damage. This is why it’s crucial to give your body enough time to recover, so it can go through this process of building muscle mass.

Rather than doing strength training every day, do this 2-3 times per week. On your rest days, you can do cardio, but you should avoid resistance training on these days.

2. Pay attention to lifestyle factors

In addition to exercise and nutrition, there are a few other lifestyle factors to pay attention to as you work to build your muscle mass.

Sleep is crucial for the maintenance and repair of body tissues. If you don’t get enough sleep, then your body won’t have the chance to build muscle tissue. In fact, studies have shown that a lack of sleep is associated with a loss of muscle mass. Make sure that you prioritize getting about eight hours of uninterrupted sleep every night.

Stress is also a crucial factor. Short-term stress is actually not a bad thing – in fact, exercise itself is a form of stress. However, when stress becomes chronic and lasts over the long term, this causes damage throughout the body. Chronic stress leads to high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which increases the breakdown of proteins in muscle cells and also blocks their ability to take up glucose for energy. This is how stress leads to decreased muscle mass. It’s essential to find ways of controlling your stress, in order to protect your muscle tissue along with other aspects of your long term health.

3. Build muscle tissue with the right nutrition

In order to build muscle tissue, the body needs to have the right building blocks. If you don’t give your body the nutrients that it needs, then you won’t see an increase in muscle mass, even if you’re consistently doing strength training.

The most crucial nutrient for building muscle tissue is protein. Muscle cells contain a lot of protein – this is what forms the structures that allow muscles to work. After a workout, your muscle cells will add extra proteins, becoming larger and stronger. To do this, they need to have enough amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. These amino acids come from the proteins that you eat.

Research indicates that, for gaining muscle mass, your daily intake of protein should be about 1.6 g per kg of body weight. For example a person weighing 70 kg should aim to eat about 112 g of protein per day. Eating more than this will not damage your body, but it also won’t give you any extra benefit in terms of muscle gain. High-protein foods include meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, tofu, beans, and lentils. 

For the best results, it’s generally recommended to take a high-protein meal about 30 to 45 minutes after your workout. However, studies have shown that the exact timing is less important than making sure you’re getting enough protein overall.

In addition to protein, there are also some micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that are important for building muscle tissue. For example, zinc is a mineral that’s necessary for protein synthesis. Studies have shown that getting enough zinc is crucial for building muscle tissue. You can get zinc from foods like beef, eggs, oysters, cashews, pumpkin seeds, chickpeas, and dark chocolate.

Optimizing your overall wellness can be much easier with the support of a health coach. A coach can help you create personalized plans, make necessary adjustments, and provide motivation throughout your journey. NOVI Health has teamed up with Virgin Active to offer expert nutritional guidance and valuable content designed to help you achieve your best self. 

Discover how NOVI’s expert dietitians and personalized consultations can provide ongoing support tailored to your needs. With access to the exclusive NOVI app, you can effortlessly track your food intake, exercise, and glucose levels in real time. Additionally, explore a wealth of articles packed with actionable tips on weight loss, managing high blood sugar, and improving your healthspan.