Loss of type-2 muscle fibers with age reduces force production, impacting functional capacity like opening jars and preventing falls.

“you know if you or I step off a curb we weren't expecting to be there or you know when you're stepping from one level to another and the level is different than you expected that immediately destabilizes you well um the AB ility to react to that very quickly and get a firm footing that is a very power driven movement right that's not really about how strong you are it's actually about how explosive and Powerful you are that is a type two muscle fiber phenomenon and as you watch the atrophy of those two fibers you have far less reactive speed in your feet and therefore you're more likely to fall in response to that”

“the atrophy of the type 2 muscle fiber well I think Andy used that as a great example of another reason why Falls go up as people age is that you know if you or I step off a curb we weren't expecting to be there or you know when you're stepping from one level to another and the level is different than you expected that immediately destabilizes you well um the ability to react to that very quickly and get a firm footing that is a very power driven movement right that's not really about how strong you are it's actually about how explosive and Powerful you are that is a type two muscle fiber phenomenon and as you watch the atrophy of those two fibers you have far less reactive speed in your feet and therefore you're more likely to fall in response to that”

“as you watch the atrophy of those two fibers you have far less reactive speed in your feet and therefore you're more likely to fall in response to that”

“But I keep thinking to myself like this is the type of slip that can be devastating. And I, you know, I don't know how long I'll like I don't know how long because these are really type two fibers that are doing it, right? and the type two fibers atrophying as we age”

“It's more specific, the sarcopenic effect is more specific to the type-2 fibers. Which is, obviously, problematic because the ability to produce force is where your primary functional capacity, at least from being able to open cans and, you know, jars, avoiding falls etc.”

“you know you often hear about people talking about the loss of muscle mass as we age you talked about losing type two types of muscle fibers more readily than the type one so these are the types of muscle fibers involved in that explosive type of um Power type you know exercise and um you know people don't think about how power decreases with age how our strength decreases with age and how that affects our quality of life how it affects our physical Independence our fall risk”

“Well, what type two fibers are important for, these are these are the power fibers. These are what if you trip over something and you need to catch yourself or you need to just prevent yourself from falling, the type two fibers are what are going to be responsible for that.”

“And if you have more power producing fibers, stronger type two fibers, you're going to be less likely to fall. Hence, you're going to be less likely to experience these disuse atrophy or these um catabolic crises as you've referred to it before.”

“And so, I think that when you look at a cohort of adults like this one, over 70,000 people who inevitably are probably experiencing falls at older ages and that could be one of the reasons contributing to their all cause mortality rate. um that go, you know, they're doing more vigor vigorous activity, they're less likely to fall. They probably have a lower um chance of experiencing all cause mortality.”