Dr. Benjamin Levine is a medical researcher in the fields of cardiology and exercise physiology. His work investigates the cardiovascular impacts of aging and exercise, including methods to address cardiac stiffness and the hemodynamics of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. His published research also covers sports cardiology, autonomic conditions such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and physiological responses to altitude and hypoxia.
One year of intensive endurance training in healthy 70-year-old sedentary adults improved cardiorespiratory fitness but failed to alter heart structure or compliance.
"we took our healthy seniors and we trained them for a year. We used the same training program that we used in a group of young people... and they got fitter for sure, but we didn't change their heart structure at all, not even a little bit. So once you got to be age 70, it was virtually impossible to change the heart structure." (said at 0:19:55)
The speaker refers to a prospective interventional study conducted by their research group (Fujimoto et al., 2010) in which 9 previously sedentary older adults (mean age 70.6 years) underwent 1 year of progressive and vigorous endurance training. The training significantly improved cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max increased by 19%) but failed to reverse age-associated cardiac stiffening or improve left ventricular (LV) compliance. However, saying the intervention 'didn't change their heart structure at all, not even a little bit' is a slight overstatement: the study did document modest physiological LV remodeling, with LV mass increasing by 10% (P = 0.037) without altering the mass-to-volume ratio.
- partial: Cardiovascular effects of 1 year of progressive and vigorous exercise training in previous… (Circulation 2010) · cited 230x in the literature
"One year of exercise training had little effect on cardiac compliance. However, it reduced arterial elastance and improved Vo(2)max by 19% (22.8±3.4 versus 27.2±4.3 mL/kg/mL; P<0.001). LV mass increased (10%, 64.5±7.9 versus 71.2±12.3 g/m(2); P=0.037) with no change in the mass-volume ratio. Although 1 year of vigorous exercise training did not appear to favorably reverse cardiac stiffening in sedentary seniors, it nonetheless induced physiological LV remodeling and imparted favorable effects on arterial function and aerobic exercise capacity." (abstract, results and conclusions, passage verified)
pubmedfull study (doi) - context: Plasticity of the heart in response to changes in physical activity. (The Journal of physiology 2025) · cited 9x in the literature
"Specifically, older adults who initiate endurance training later in life are unable to improve ventricular compliance and diastolic function, suggesting reduced cardiac plasticity with advanced age; however, lifelong exercise training prevents age-associated cardiac remodelling and maintains cardiac compliance of older adults at a level similar to those of younger healthy individuals." (abstract, results, passage verified)
pubmedfull study (doi)
The American College of Sports Medicine published a scientific statement on the biological differences of sex in sports with Sandra Hunter as the lead author.
"we just published a definitive scientific statement about the biologic differences of sex from the American College of Sports Medicine. Sandra Hunter from Marquette is the first author on it." (said at 1:55:43)
The claim is supported. In 2023, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) published an official consensus statement titled 'The Biological Basis of Sex Differences in Athletic Performance: Consensus Statement for the American College of Sports Medicine' in its flagship journal, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, with Sandra K. Hunter (Marquette University) as the lead author.
A Cooper Clinic analysis of individuals performing more than 10,000 MET-minutes of exercise per week found zero cardiovascular deaths and no increase in overall mortality.
"And in fact, we presented at the American Heart Association a few years ago: we looked at the Cooper Clinic database, we looked at more than 10,000 MET-minutes a week. This was stimulated by Amby Burfoot, by the way, who asked us this question: "What about, you know, you say only eight hours a week? That's nothing for many of my runners." Or he said, "Okay, these average guys average 30 hours a week." And there was no increase in mortality, there was no increase in events. It wasn't a lot of people, it was twice the number in the Copenhagen heart study, by the way. You know how many cardiovascular deaths? Zero." (said at 2:22:45)
The speaker references an American Heart Association conference presentation analyzing extreme exercise volumes (>10,000 MET-minutes/week) in the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study database. In published, peer-reviewed analyses from this cohort, high-volume physical activity (categorized as ≥3,000 MET-minutes/week) was similarly found to have no increased risk of myocardial infarction or composite coronary events, and was associated with a significant 29% reduction in all-cause mortality compared to low activity. The specific conference sub-analysis evaluating the extreme >10,000 MET-minutes/week tier was presented as preliminary conference findings rather than published as a standalone peer-reviewed endpoint.