Who Wants To Live Forever? You Do!

How? Exercise & Move, Just Move

Queen, with their hit song of 1986, expressed a universal dream: to live forever. Even though we can’t live forever, we can certainly live better.

This is the first of three articles intended to provide the scientific, intellectual, and logical support for exercise, for moving during the day. The second article will give you specific tools to strengthen your body to move, and to exercise without injury. The third article will give you access to a series of exercises and movement programs to help you with your exercise and moving plan.

Maybe we can’t live forever, but we can definitely live better and we can stay well and live long and healthy lives. Here’s how. It’s called exercise. It’s called moving.

In 2015, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges found exercise to be a “miracle cure”. A huge meta-analysis study* (a study of many other studies) examined the effect of exercise therapy, of people moving, in people with chronic diseases. (*U Kujala, Department of Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Finland; urho.kujala@sport.jyu.fi)

 

Musculoskeletal issues.

  • Researchers found 32 trials looking specifically at the effect of exercise on pain and function of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee alone. Exercise improved those conditions.
  • Ten more studies showed that exercise therapy increased aerobic capacity and muscle strength in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
  • Other studies proved the benefits of exercise in other musculoskeletal conditions, like ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine and large joints, and even some types of back pain.

 

Cardiovascular issues.

  • Exercise therapy reduced all causes of mortality by 27 percent and cardiac mortality by 31 percent for people, mostly middle-aged men, who had had a heart attack. Fourteen additional controlled trials showed physiological benefits in those with heart failure.
  • Exercise has also been shown to lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension, and improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

 

Diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease & Multiple Sclerosis

  • People with diabetes who exercise have a lower HbA1c value, which is the marker of blood sugar control, low enough to probably reduce the risk of complications from the disease.
  • Twenty randomized controlled trials showed that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease could walk farther and function better if they exercise.
  • Multiple studies found that exercise improved physical function and health-related quality of life in people who have Parkinson’s disease.
  • Six more studies showed that exercise improved muscle power and mobility-related activities and mood in people with multiple sclerosis.

 

Depression & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

  • 23 randomized controlled trials showed that exercise most likely improved the symptoms of depression!
  • Five other studies appeared to show that exercise improved symptoms in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome.
  • Exercise even lessened fatigue in patients who were having therapy for cancer.

These are incredible results! Based on these facts, you can make a good argument that exercise is equal to drugs for many conditions.

 

How Much Exercise Must I Do?

  • Not a lot. It doesn’t have to be a jock-type workout everyday.
  • Moderate exercise, such as a brisk walk, will do the job. Higher intensity workouts are better, generally, but only 1 or 2% of the population maintains that level of intensity.
  • You don’t need the Insanity™ workout to live better or longer. SoulCycle™ or CrossFit™ are good for those who want a big bang for their buck, but those types of workouts are not necessary to get the full benefits of moving and the benefits of exercise.
  • “Age is not an excuse to do no exercise. It is well established that regular physical activity has a better overall effect on health than any medical treatment”. (Dr. David Hupin, University Hospital, Saint-Etienne, France).
  • However, fewer than half of older adults achieve the recommended minimum of 150 minutes moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise each week.”

 

The goal of this series is to make you aware of what you can do, to show you how beneficial a moderate, easy exercise program is for you, and how to set yourself up to do it. We will also give you the tools to injury-proof your body to do the exercises. Why do I need this? You need this because too many people hurt themselves starting an exercise program when their bodies aren’t prepared for it. As a result, the program crashes in the first week.

Most of us are de-conditioned. You need basic conditioning first. Then you can begin and maintain a program of moderate exercise and movement to keep you healthy forever. You can start this program at any time or any age, so please check this site every week and get the information you need to build a long and healthy life.

 

N.B. This article and the two that will follow each owe a thank-you to David Hupin, M.D., the European Society of Cardiology, and to Aaron E. Carroll, professor of pediatrics at Indiana University school of Medicine. Much of this information is derived from their reports on health, exercise, and movement, in 2016.