Thru Hiking Affects On Longevity
I’m a Thru-Hiker. At least I consider myself one. Frankly, I think most thru-hikers would consider me a Section-Hiker. For example, I hiked the Tahoe Rim Trail, (the TRT is located near my home in Lake Tahoe) in 2018.
In spring of 2023, I hiked the Camino de Santiago, the French route.
But the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) has always been my goal. To date, I’ve hiked 1,502 miles of the PCT reaching Mt. Shasta this last summer. My largest section hike of the PCT was in the spring of 2022 when I walked 967 miles from Warner Springs, mile 111 to Lake Tahoe where I’ve hiked prior. I covered these miles thanks in large part to my personal trail angel, Beatriz.
It was during this long section when I wondered, “what effect do all these miles have on my body.” Frankly, the Sierra section during this trip took a heavy toll on me, reaching Tahoe weighing 140 pounds and 6% body fat. I was a shell of my former self, and exhausted when my Trail Angel picked me up.
I was lucky however, as I had completed a TruDiagnostic Biological Age test prior to my long section hike. Starting their lab in April, 2020, TruDiagnostic’s mission is, “help people understand, access, and benefit from their epigenome. They research & develop epigenetic analysis methods in the effort to create new methylation-based medical diagnostic tools.” Having read about and studied biological aging methods, I was interested in this technology.
But what is biological age? According to TruDiagnostic’s website, “Chronological age refers to one’s calendar or actual age, i.e., number of years alive since birth. On the other hand, biological age refers to how old a person’s cells are, i.e., one’s body age.” The NIH states, “Aging is accompanied by gradual changes in most body systems. Research on the biology of aging focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular processes underlying these changes as well as those accompanying the onset of age-related diseases.”
Given my interest, I completed my first biological age test in 2021, just months before the start of my long section hike. Immediately after my thru hike in June of 2022, I completed a second test. Then in October of 2023, after completing another 300+ miles of the PCT and 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago, I completed another test. So my three biological blood tests seem to be a “non-replicated/antidotal” pre/post thru-hiking experiment measuring the effect of this effort on the changes in my biological age.
What made this measurement more impactful was that TruDiagnostic offered to update my previous blood tests with their latest technology; OMICm Age. They claim “OMICm Age is the newest epigenetic biological age clock created by researchers at TruDiagnostic and Harvard University. It uses some of the most comprehensive aging data ever collected in a single cohort to predict the age of your body through advanced epigenetic methylation algorithms.” Continuing, “This test includes proteomics, metabolomics, genetics, epigenetics, transcriptomics, and classical phenotypic information such as clinical blood labs and disease. It is one of the most robust datasets on aging ever created.” Be sure to check out their website for more details on the tests and reports.
But let’s look at my results over the three-year period, starting with my OMICm Biological age.
Using the OMICm Biological Age results, I aged 3.7 years in the 10 months that included my long section thru-hike. I knew that my thru-hike was tough on me, losing 17 pounds and a lot of strength, but I had no idea how much toll this experience took on my body.
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| (After Forester and before Glenn pass was probably my low point of the entire PCT. I believe that I “bonked” after completing most every pass.) |
Interesting enough, I gained 2.25 years back the year following my long thru-hike even though it included two long hikes during the spring and summer.
In addition to OMICm Age, TruDianostic provides an Immune report; containing both Intrinsic and Extrinsic Age. TruDiagnostic says “Intrinsic Epigenetic Aging (IEA) is the fundamental rate of aging. It is the baseline epigenetic shift that happens as time passes. This measurement is considered a measure of 'pure' epigenetic aging, that doesn't include the external, unique influences that can change a person's Biological Age.” Continuing, “Extrinsic age is the age of your immune system and is helpful to predict how long we might live in addition to many other things.”
Here are my Intrinsic Age results:
Using my Intrinsic Age, the 10 months that included my long thru-hike cost me 5.82 years; NOT GOOD! However, I’ve gained back 4+ years the following year. Although the difference between my calendar and Intrinsic Age is no longer 4.5 years, it’s closer.
And here are my Extrinsic Age Results:
The change in my Extrinsic Age parallels my Intrinsic Age changes; -5.5 years in the 10 months that included my longer section thru-hike. I’m grateful, however, that my immune systems seems relative strong bouncing way back to my seemingly, more normal result.
In addition to OMICm and Intrinsic/Extrinsic Ages, TruDianostic provides Telomere length. According to TruDiagnostics, “Telomeres are repeating sequences of nucleotide sequences (TTAGGG) that tag the ends of all chromosomes. They are designed to prevent unpredictable changes in the DNA strand, keeping the genome stable. Telomere length has emerged as an important determinant of replicative senescence and cell fate - an important indicator of the aging process and a wide range of disease states, including cancers, cardiovascular disease, and age-related disorders.” Here are my reported Telomere Ages:
Again, the 10 months that included my long-distance section thru-hike cost me 5+ years in telomere length. My results are not all the way back in the year following; but a lot better.
The last result that I will cover is All-Cause Mortality. All-cause mortality means death due to any cause. The term is commonly used in medical research where it is often expressed as the total number of deaths that occur within a specific timeframe and population. A Negative score means that your risk of death is lower compared to people of your same chronological age. A Positive score means that your risk of death is higher compared to people of the same chronological age. My results were especially disconcerting.
According the test results from TruDiagnostic, my All-Cause Mortality increased by 51% in the 10 months that included my long thru-hike on the PCT. WOW; that was NOT expected. At least my risk of death decreased dramatically over the next year; decreasing by over 68%.
What is interesting about this disease risk assessment is what happened to me after leaving the trail. While returning from a wedding not long after my long through hike, I contracted Covid 19. Although my symptoms were not horrible, I ended up suffering from Long Covid. In my case, I later learned Covid reactivated EBV (Mononucleosis) in my body. In fact, I had 15X the number of EVB antibodies for what is considered “infected”. Basically, I suffered with Mono for 9 months prior to feeling close to normal. It’s clear to me that my thru-hike wore me down.
What did I learn from my experience in 2022? For me, I had to eat more; a lot more on trail. While in Spain on the Camino, weight loss was NOT a problem. Lots of food and wine were consumed during my time in Spain. On the sections of the PCT I hiked in 2023, I ate two, large hot meals (breakfast and dinner) along with lunch. I still lost weight, but nothing like my results in 2022. In addition to eating even more, it seems I recovered from the effects of my longer-distance PCT experience. Recovering just takes time; especially when you are as old as me!
Thru-Hiking can be tough. Cold, wet, steep and long distances make this activity difficult. But these difficulties make the experience even sweeter. I plan to capture more of the PCT in 2024, but with a lot more food. And consider testing your health pre/post your next thru-hike.
Guy Mikel
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