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exercise
An October 2022 study by the University of Jyväskylä and the University of Eastern Finland said,
“Our results show that being overweight or obese increases the risk of metabolic syndrome regardless of the level of aerobic fitness,”
“Instead of focusing on aerobic fitness, preventing metabolic syndrome should start with increasing physical activity, improving diet quality, and controlling weight.”
An October 2022 study by Kean University in Union, New Jersey said,
“We have traditionally directed physical activity interventions by engaging sedentary individuals to become more active. Our model suggests that focusing on the moderately active population to sustain their activity and increasing their interactions with sedentary people could stimulate higher levels of overall physical activity in the population.”
A May 2021 study by Columbia University and an international team of researchers said,
"For decades, we've been telling people that the way to stay healthy is to get at least 30 minutes of exercise five days a week,"
"But even if you're one of the few adults who can stick to this advice, 30 minutes represents just 2% of your entire day,”
"Is it really possible that our activity habits for just 2% of the day is all that matters when it comes to health?"
"What we don't know is the best combination, or cocktail, of ingredients needed to prolong life,"
The benefits depend on how you spend the rest of the day.
"In other words, it is not as simple as checking off that 'exercise' box on your to-do list,”
"A healthy movement profile requires more than 30 minutes of daily exercise. Moving around and not remaining sedentary all day also matters."
"Getting 30 minutes of physical activity per day, or 150 minutes per week, is what's currently recommended, but you still have the potential to undo all that good work if you sit too long,"
"Perhaps you're a parent with young kids and you simply can't get to the gym to exercise,”
"But you can still have a healthy movement profile as long as you move around a lot throughout the day as you tend to your everyday activities."
"While there will always be sitting in our lives, as with most things in life, it's about sitting in moderation. The key is to find the right balance of sedentary time and physical activity."
“A cocktail formula of 3 to 1 is best.”
“Three minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity or 12 minutes of light activity per hour of sitting was optimal for improving health and reducing the risk of early death.”
"Our new formula gets at the right balance between moderate-to-vigorous exercise and sitting to help people lead a longer, healthier life,"
"The leftover hours should be spent moving around as much as possible and getting a good night's sleep."
There are many options and combinations. For example:
“55 minutes of exercise, 4 hours of light physical activity, and 11 hours of sitting”
“13 minutes of exercise, 5.5 hours of light physical activity, and 10.3 hours of sitting”
“3 minutes of exercise, 6 hours of light physical activity, and 9.7 hours of sitting”
The study continued
"This is good news for people who may not have the time, ability, or desire to engage in formal exercise,”
"They can get health benefits from a lot of light physical activity and just a little moderate-to-vigorous activity."
"Our study shows that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to physical activity, and we get to choose which ones we like best,”
"It may be more important to mix a movement cocktail that includes a healthy dose of exercise and light activity to take the place of sitting."
A June 2021 study by Imperial College London, said,
”We often ask why obesity rates are so high among British children and this study provides a window into this. Our findings show that an exceptionally high proportion of their diet is made up of ultra-processed foods, with one in five children consuming 78% of their calories from ultra-processed foods.”
"Through a lack of regulation, and enabling the low cost and ready availability of these foods, we are damaging our children's long-term health. We urgently need effective policy change to redress the balance, to protect the health of children and reduce the proportion of these foods in their diet."
"One of the key things we uncover here is a dose-response relationship. This means that it's not only the children who eat the most ultra-processed foods have the worst weight gain, but also the more they eat, the worse this gets."
"Childhood is a critical time when food preferences and eating habits are formed with long-lasting effects on health. We know that if children have an unhealthy weight early in life, this tends to trace into adolescence and then adulthood. We also know that an excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods is linked to a number of health issues including being overweight or obese, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes and cancer later in life, so the implications are enormous."
"Today in Britain, two in every three calories consumed amongst children and adolescents is derived from this group [of ultra-processed foods]. They're everywhere, they're cheap, and they're heavily marketed. So they're very difficult to resist and very difficult to avoid."
A June 2021 study by the Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine and Brain Institute and Ozioma Okonkwo, Ph.D., Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and their collaborators, said,
"Our findings position CTSB, BDNF, and klotho as exercise biomarkers for evaluating the effect of lifestyle interventions on brain function,"
"Human studies often utilize expensive and low throughput brain imaging analyses that are not practical for large population-wide studies. Systemic biomarkers that can measure the effect of exercise interventions on Alzheimer's-related outcomes quickly and at low-cost could be used to inform disease progression and to develop novel therapeutic targets."
"The positive association between CTSB and cognition, and the substantial modulation of lipid metabolites implicated in dementia, support the beneficial effects of exercise training on brain function and brain health in asymptomatic individuals at risk for Alzheimer's disease,"
A June 2021 study by RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences said,
"Depression is common in patients with coronary artery disease. Having both conditions can have a significant impact on the quality of life for patients so it is vital that they access to the most effective treatments,”
"Our study indicates that exercise is likely to be the best treatment for depression following coronary artery disease. Our findings further highlight the clinical importance of exercise as a treatment as we see that it improves not only depression, but also other important aspects of heart disease, such as lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, in these patients."
"We continue to see emerging evidence of the importance of lifestyle to treat disease - in comparison to other treatments - but further high-quality research is needed. People with coronary heart disease who have symptoms of depression should talk to their doctor about treatments that are most suitable for their personal needs, and clinicians can be confident of recommending exercise to their patients."
A May 2021 study by McMaster University found that,
"Brief, vigorous stair-climbing and traditional moderate intensity exercise both changed fitness, which is a key predictor of mortality after a cardiac event,"
"We've shown stair-climbing is a safe, efficient and feasible option for cardiac rehabilitation, which is particularly relevant during the pandemic when many people don't have the option to exercise in a gym,"
"These patients who had undergone a coronary bypass or stent procedure had muscle that was compromised, compared to age-matched healthy controls,"
"Even in just a short period, whether it was moderate intensity, continuous training or high-intensity stair climbing, there were beneficial adaptations in muscles after a cardiac procedure," Phillips says. "The improvements were clear."
A June 2021 study at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania said,
"The current American Heart Association guidelines for diagnosing high blood pressure and cholesterol recognize that otherwise healthy individuals with mildly or moderately elevated levels of these cardiovascular risk factors should actively attempt to reduce these risks. The first treatment strategy for many of these patients should be healthy lifestyle changes beginning with increasing physical activity,"
"Increasing physical activity can help lower blood pressure and cholesterol, along with many other health benefits."
"Every little bit of activity is better than none,”
"Even small initial increases of 5 to 10 minutes a day can yield health benefits."
"In our world where physical activity is increasingly engineered out of our lives and the overwhelming default is to sit - and even more so now as the nation and the world is practicing quarantine and isolation to reduce the spread of coronavirus - the message that we must be relentless in our pursuit to 'sit less and move more' throughout the day is more important than ever,"
“Exercise training can help support management of overweight and obesity in adults, and can contribute to health benefits beyond "scale victories” found a July 2021 review by the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) which provides scientific evidence on health and wellbeing benefits of exercise training for people living with overweight and obesity.
An August 2021 study by Sticht Center for Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Prevention at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina found that
"Cutting 200 (not 250) calories daily and exercising may improve heart health in obese older adults"
“This is the first study to assess the effects of aerobic exercise training with and without reducing calories on aortic stiffness, which was measured via cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) to obtain detailed images of the aorta,”
“We sought to determine whether adding caloric restriction for weight loss would lead to greater improvements in vascular health compared to aerobic exercise alone in older adults with obesity.”
“Our findings indicate that lifestyle changes designed to increase aerobic activity and moderately decrease daily calorie intake may help to reduce aortic stiffness and improve overall vascular health,”
“However, we were surprised to find that the group that reduced their calorie intake the most did not have any improvements in aortic stiffness, even though they had similar decreases in body weight and blood pressure as the participants with moderate calorie restriction.”
“These results suggest that combining exercise with modest calorie restriction — as opposed to more intensive calorie restriction or no-calorie restriction — likely maximizes the benefits on vascular health, while also optimizing weight loss and improvements in body composition and body fat distribution. The finding that higher-intensity calorie restriction may not be necessary or advised has important implications for weight loss recommendations to improve cardiovascular disease risk in older adults with obesity.”
An April 2021 study by Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) said,
"Previously, we found that 100 PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence, tracking heart rate) a week can give us a longer and healthier life without cardiovascular disease. Our new study shows that PAI can also help people maintain a healthy body weight,"
"We already know that physical activity is an effective strategy to minimize or prevent weight gain in adults. The new study, and previous PAI studies, indicate that PAI can guide people so that they get enough physical activity each week to avoid the health hazards of excessive weight gain,"
An April 2021 study by the University of South Australia said,
"There are many competing time demands in modern families ¬- whether it's after school soccer, music lessons, or simply walking the family dog, finding the time to fit everything into a single day, can be a challenge,"
"International guidelines suggest that children need 9-11 hours' sleep, 60 minutes of physical exercise, and no more than two hours of recreational screen time per day, yet only seven percent of children are regularly meeting these goals.”
"With so many competing priorities and commitments, it's helpful to know which activities deliver the greatest 'bang for your buck’."
"In this research we calculated how much sleep, sedentary time, light exercise, and moderate-to-vigorous exercise was associated with the same improvements in mental health, physical health and academic achievement.”
"For families with very little available time, small increases in moderate-to-vigorous exercise could be an option to improve children's health and wellbeing; alternatively an earlier night could equally deliver the same health benefits - importantly, it's the flexibility that these findings offer that make them so valuable.”
"Exploring trade-offs between children's activities is a promising way for families to make healthy choices that suit their regular family schedule."
The Heart Foundation's Director of Physical Activity said
"This study confirms that physical activity is the quickest and most effective way to deliver benefits for children's physical health and mental wellbeing. But the findings also offer some flexibility for families,"
"Helping young people make healthy choices and helping families create an environment that supports them in these choices can improve their quality of life in the future, as well as reducing their risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease."
“…who yields, wins. The French express the same tactical paradox in a saying, ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’ - draw back, the better to leap forwards. In a strong wind, the unbending oak is uprooted, while the flexible reed springs back.”
Roger Neighbour
An April 2021 study by Kanazawa University found "no difference was found in the changes in muscle pump action with age", and that "elderly people may be able to maintain their muscle pump action when they have exercise habits".
An April 2021 study by Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands said,
"Previous research showed that improvements in physical activity are beneficial to health. However, those studies were performed in the general population. In our study, we were interested to see if there were similar effects in individuals with cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.”
"Our study suggests that to prevent heart attacks and strokes and boost longevity, healthy individuals should maintain their physical activity levels, while those with risk factors need to become more active. The associations we found were even more pronounced in people who were relatively sedentary at the start of the study, indicating that inactive people have the most to gain.”
"If you are currently sedentary, walking is a good activity to start with. If you are already hitting the recommended amount, try doing 10 minutes more each day or increasing the intensity."
An April 2021 study by Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute said,
"Scientists already know that exercise has a positive impact on the brain, but our study is the first to show that the same may be true for household chores,"
"Understanding how different forms of physical activity contribute to brain health is crucial for developing strategies to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia in older adults."
"Besides helping to guide physical activity recommendations for older adults, these findings may also motivate them to be more active, since household chores are a natural and often necessary aspect of many people's daily lives, and therefore appear more attainable,"
An April 2021 study by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals said,
"Results from randomized controlled trials and observational studies have shown that exercise lowers blood pressure, suggesting that it may be important to focus on exercise as a way to lower blood pressure in all adults as they approach middle age,"
"Teenagers and those in their early twenties may be physically active but these patterns change with age. Our study suggests that maintaining physical activity during young adulthood - at higher levels than previously recommended - may be particularly important."
"Nearly half of our participants in young adulthood had suboptimal levels of physical activity, which was significantly associated with the onset of hypertension, indicating that we need to raise the minimum standard for physical activity,”
"This might be especially the case after high school when opportunities for physical activity diminish as young adults transition to college, the workforce and parenthood, and leisure time is eroded."
A March 2021 study using data from the Framingham Heart Study said,
"Health care professionals could use these findings to further promote and emphasize to their patients the benefits of a healthy diet and a regular exercise schedule to avoid the development of numerous chronic health conditions in the present and in later life,"
"The earlier people make these lifestyle changes, the more likely they will be to lower their risk of cardiovascular-associated diseases later in life."
"It is noteworthy that we observed a dose-response association of adherence to diet and physical activity guidelines with risk of cardiometabolic disease later in life,”
"Participants who met the physical activity guidelines had progressively lower risk of cardiometabolic disease as they increased adherence to the dietary guidelines."
An April 2021 study by Purdue University said,
"In our study, we focused on couples because partners in committed relationships often provide essential support to promote one another's healthy lifestyle behaviors, including exercise,"
"We were hoping that there would not be a reduction in speed where partners walked together. We hoped that slower partners would speed up to match the faster partner, but that was not the case. However, it's important to note that any physical activity or walking - regardless of speed - is better than none."
"If someone substantially slows down when they are walking with someone else, that could negate some of the health benefits recognized if they walked alone at a faster pace,”
"Gait speed is important to measure because it is related to overall health. Typical gait speed is predictive of fall risk, functional ability, disability recovery and mortality,”
"Common exercise interventions, including strength, coordination and multimodal training, are all effective in increasing gait speed. These interventions can also delay the onset of slower gait speed and help slow the loss of gait speed. No one type of training is better than the other, so do the activity you are most likely to stick with."
"Older adults who are more active tend to maintain their gait speed,"
"In other words, slower gait speed is not an inevitable aspect of ageing. Older adults who walk slower tend to have poorer health and lower functional status."
An April 2021 study by the National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark.
"We adjusted for multiple factors in our analysis, indicating that the relationships were not explained by lifestyle, health conditions or socioeconomic status,”
"Many people with manual jobs believe they get fit and healthy by their physical activity at work and therefore can relax when they get home. Unfortunately, our results suggest that this is not the case. And while these workers could benefit from leisure physical activity, after walking 10,000 steps while cleaning or standing seven hours in a production line, people
"A brisk 30-minute walk will benefit your health by raising your heart rate and improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, while work activity often does not sufficiently increase heart rate to improve fitness. In addition, work involving lifting for several hours a day increases blood pressure for many hours, which is linked with heart disease risk, while short bursts of intense physical activity during leisure raises blood pressure only briefly."
"We are trying to vary the tasks, give recovery time, or raise heart rate so there is a fitness and health benefit,"
