Prevention: Exercising a lot or moderately, both are always healthy
Runners are dead runners is the saying, but that is not true. Exercising a lot is still healthy. But even if you hate exercise, American epidemiologists have good news for you. You only have to move a little to drastically reduce your risk of fatal cancers and cardiovascular diseases.
The researchers also have good news for sports addicts in Thailand and elsewhere, who exercise considerably more than information officers advise. A lifestyle with an extreme amount of exercise does not or hardly increase the risk of mortality.
exercise
30 minutes of walking at a reasonable pace five days a week. That's the amount of exercise everyone should be getting, say health scientists. Expressed in calorie consumption, this is 7.5 metabolic equivalent hours per week [MET h/wk]. And if you already have so much movement? Then you should double it. Compliance with that advice reduces the risk of death, according to piles of studies. But what exactly happens if you move more than that 7.5-15 MET h/wk? Researchers at the American National Cancer Institute Shady Grove wanted to answer that question with an epidemiological study, which was published in JAMA in June 2015.
Study and result
The researchers pooled data from previously published studies. These related to 661.137 people, who had been followed for an average of 14.2 years. The study participants who exercised more than the guideline of one hour of walking per day [LPTA] appeared to be slightly better protected against death from cancer and cardiovascular disease than the study participants who met the guideline, the researchers discovered. A dose of 5-10 times the guideline offered the greatest protection.
A little or extremely much, moving is always healthy
For the study participants who exceeded the guideline more than 10 times, the mortality risk increased slightly, but according to the researchers this has little meaning. Physical exercise reduces the risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease the strongest 22.5-40 MET h/week. In other words: walking for more than an hour a day. The effect of physical activity on cancer mortality becomes stronger as the amount of physical activity increases. The following applies: the more, the better.
Conclusion
“These findings are informative for individuals at both ends of the physical activity spectrum,” the researchers write. “They provide important evidence to inactive individuals by showing that modest amounts of activity provide substantial benefit for postponing mortality, while reassuring very active individuals of no exercise-associated increase in mortality risk.”
Source: JAMA Intern Med. 2015 Jun;175(6):959-67 (ergogenics.com)
Good to hear that I am healthy. As an old marathon runner, I try to enjoy myself on the treadmill here despite the heat and retirement age. In the neighborhood with those loose and biting dogs, this is what remains. About four or five times a week on the belt for an hour and you feel like new again. Better than all those beer bites in the bars, you won't find me much there.
I recommend it to everyone, provided you take into account your own ailments, of course, because it is not, and I am aware of that, given to everyone. Also saves on health costs and that certainly can't hurt in this country.
Despite all the research, but when I look at how old the average top athlete gets, and what is wrong with him/her after his/her 35th birthday, exercising too intensively is absolutely not healthy.
I also played very intensive sports for about 30 years (water polo, surfing, fitness and various martial arts), and now I have the consequences of that (enlarged heart, worn joints and too strong lung muscles which make breathing more difficult).
I have to take it easy now, and I'm only 44.
No, nice and good for you; intensive sports.
Dear Michel,
The nail and the hammer together.
Good comment, anywhere that stands for is not good, but whatever you do
it's never good.
Cycled for years, sports heart is good for your blood pressure, you get a lot older with it.
Regards,
Erwin
Dear Michel,
I myself have also practiced a lot of sport, and still do this adapted to my age, because I am convinced of the positive effects. I've run many marathons, and even ultra marathons, so I know what I'm talking about. Even in top sport it is important that one has good guidance and a body that fits the chosen sport. For example, nowadays a good trainer, or sports artist, will never advise someone with a congenital weak back to become a weightlifter, although perhaps swimming would normally be possible. Furthermore, someone with bad knees will be strictly advised against starting a running sport, because the problems for the future are already present here. A good trainer or sportsarzt will certainly consider a good training dose nowadays, whereby the body also deserves rest in order not to get unnecessary injuries. Someone who has really big problems at the age of 35, in the form of worn-out joints, or is so disabled that he has to take it slowly because of the Sport, at the age of 44, has usually been accompanied by a Trainer, who says ,, sport” interchanged with “exploitation”. You could compare it to "eating" and "eating" where the former is necessary for life, and the latter only causes damage. I am now almost 70 years old and still walk about 50 km every week, I feel fit, and I still try to pay attention to every warning signal from my body during my training sessions, so that the sport remains healthy and certainly does not cause any damage.
You can exaggerate with anything, especially with sports. One does too much, the other too little... With that half hour I'm also in the right direction. I have a cross trainer at home, on which I pedal for half an hour almost every morning. I notice this especially later when cycling. An hour of good hard pedaling is no problem for me.
The best hours here in Thailand are the morning hours for me. At the latest at half past six on the elliptical trainer and when I go cycling, it can be an hour later.
It's a nice change. But I don't exercise every day. On average five days a week. On the days when I don't "sport", I do work in the garden and I am also in motion a lot.
Even at age 65 and older, you can still do a lot to get in shape and tone your muscles. And that's what we all need, don't we?