The first paper from the 3 year study on exercise training and redox balance was recently published in Free Radical Biology and Medicine (see our publications page). This study was an 8-week randomized controlled where young and older individuals were randomly assigned to either exercise training or a non-exercise control group. The primary outcome tested whether the exercise intervention would improve Nrf2 activation and signaling in response to acute exercise. The two main findings were i) the exercise intervention improved the age-related impairment in Nrf2 signaling, and ii) basal levels of Nrf2 were elevated in the older cohort pre-intervention as compared to young. The exercise intervention lowered basal levels in the older group while there was no change in the control group. Taken together, these results suggest that the impairment in older adults to respond to an acute stimulus may be due to elevated basal redox status with greater fraction of thiols in oxidized state. The good news is that exercise training can overcome some of these issues. This study was funded by the National Institutes on Aging.