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Health Information
Exercise More, Live Longer
It's
official—increased exercise capacity lowers the risk of death in
African-American and Caucasian men, a US study found.
Lead author Peter Kokkinos of the Veterans
Affairs Medical Center in Washington said the Veterans Affairs study is the
largest known study to assess the link between fitness and mortality.
"It is important to emphasize that it takes
relatively moderate levels of physical activity—like brisk walking—to attain
the associated health benefits," Kokkinos said in a statement.
"Certainly, one does not need to be a
marathon runner. This is the message that we need to convey to the public."
Kokkinos and colleagues investigated
exercise capacity as an independent predictor of overall mortality in 6,749
African-American men and 8,911 Caucasian men, who were tested by treadmill
test and were tracked for an average of 7.5 years.
The study, published in the Circulation:
Journal of the American Heart Association, found men who achieved "very highly
fit" levels had a 70 percent lower risk of death compared to those in the "low
fit" category.
"Our findings show that the risk of death is
cut in half with an exercise capacity that can easily be achieved by a brisk
walk of about 30 minutes per session five to six days per week," Kokkinos
added.
You Don’t Need Intense Workouts to
Improve Health
Moderate
exercise shows healthy benefits
Moderate
exercise, such as walking 30 minutes a day, may offer better protection
against diabetes and heart disease than a more rigorous workout regimen,
concludes a U.S. study that included 240 middle-age, sedentary people.
"On the surface, it seems to make sense that
the harder we exercise, the better off we'll be, and by some measures that's
true," lead author and exercise physiologist Cris Slentz, of Duke University
Medical Center, said. "But our studies show that a modest amount of moderately
intense exercise is the best way to significantly lower the level of a key
blood marker linked to higher risk of heart disease and diabetes. More intense
exercise doesn't seem to do that."
Perhaps even more surprising is that some of
the benefits achieved through moderate exercise seem to last much longer than
the benefits gained through more intense training, Slentz said.
The study was published in the August 2007
issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology. The participants in the study were
divided into four exercise groups: high amount/high intensity; low amount/high
intensity; low amount/moderate intensity; and a control group that did no
exercise. The volunteers started with a two- to three-month "ramp-up" period
and then continued their exercise programs for six months.
The Duke team found that no amount of
exercise significantly changed levels of low- density lipoprotein (LDL --
"bad" cholesterol). However, length and intensity of exercise did improve
levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL -- "good" cholesterol), and that
benefit was sustained over time.
The study also found that low
amount/moderate intensity exercise significantly lowered levels of
triglycerides, which are particles that carry fat around the body and are also
a good indicator of insulin resistance, a marker for diabetes. Reducing
triglyceride levels lowers a person's risk of diabetes and heart disease.
"A proper exercise program appears to be
able to lower a person's insulin resistance in just a matter of days. We were
also amazed to see that the lower triglyceride levels stayed low even two
weeks after the workouts ended," senior author and cardiologist Dr. William
Kraus said in a prepared statement.
Walking 10,000 Steps a Day is an Easy Way
to Get Your Recommended Exercise
Research
shows people who set a goal of 10K steps get more exercise than those who walk
briskly for 30 minutes a day.
Getting your daily exercise by briskly
walking two or three miles can seem a trifle daunting. But walking 20 or 30
steps—that’s not so bad, is it? Add up a few steps here and there, and soon
you’re burning calories and boosting your daily activity level.
That’s the premise behind today’s popular
10,000 step programs, which encourage folks to walk 10,000 steps per day—the
equivalent of five miles. Think in Steps, Not Minutes Medicine & Science in
Sports & Exercise reports that women who were told to walk 10,000 steps each
day walked more than women told to take a daily brisk 30-minute walk.
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