We wanted to know if weightlifting alone—or in combination with aerobic exercise—influences one’s risk of early death,” says Jess Gorzelitz, assistant professor of health and human physiology at the University of Iowa, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
“So we asked a group of roughly 100,000 older adults about their lifestyle, and then we followed them for about 10 years.” Those who hit the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines for aerobic activity—150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week—were nearly a third less likely to die over those 10 years. That’s no surprise, since aerobic activity improves cardiovascular fitness and is linked to a lower risk of several cancers.
I realize that writing about 80-year-olds and above is ‘rarified atmosphere,’ but I loved the fact that walking was still a tangible benefit to the person. You can never hear enough about the benefits of exercise or the damage of being sedentary.
One hour of walking per week is associated with greater longevity in people aged 85 years and above, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2022.
Regardless of age, adults are advised to do at least 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity activity or 75 minutes a week of vigorous intensity activity, or an equivalent combination.2 However, in adults, sedentary time tends to increase with age while the amount of physical activity declines.
In good news for those who don’t like playing sport or going to the gym, new research finds just three to four one-minute bursts of huffing and puffing during daily tasks is associated with large reductions in the risk of premature death, particularly from cardiovascular disease.
Published in Nature Medicine, the study is led by the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre in Australia. It is the first to accurately measure the health benefits of what researchers have termed ‘vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity’ or VILPA.
VILPA is the very short bouts of vigorous activity (up to one to two minutes) we do with gusto each day, like running for the bus, bursts of power walking while doing errands or playing high-energy games with the kids.
The researchers found that just three to four one-minute bouts of VILPA every day is associated with up to 40 percent reduction in all-cause and cancer-related mortality, and up to a 49 percent reduction in death related to cardiovascular disease.
“Our study shows similar benefits to high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can be achieved through increasing the intensity of incidental activities done as part of daily living, and the more the better,” said lead author Emmanuel Stamatakis, Professor of Physical Activity, Lifestyle and Population Health at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre.
“A few very short bouts totaling three to four minutes a day could go a long way, and there are many daily activities that can be tweaked to raise your heart rate for a minute or so.”
The majority of adults aged 40 and over do not take part in regular exercise or sport, but Professor Stamatakis said the study reveals how incidental physical activity can overcome many barriers.
“Upping the intensity of daily activities requires no time commitment, no preparation, no club memberships, no special skills. It simply involves stepping up the pace while walking or doing the housework with a bit more energy,” he said.
While working with other researchers, Prof. Carmit Levy, Ph.D., associate professor of human molecular genetics and biochemistry at Tel Aviv University, became interested in how muscle is resistant to metastatic cancer.
That work led to a new study from Tel Aviv University, recently published in Cancer Research, which suggests people may be able to reduce their risk of developing metastatic cancer by regularly engaging in high intensity aerobic exercise.
“From [being curious] about the muscle, we ended up investigating physical activity,” Prof. Levy told Medical News Today. (MNT). “We said, ‘OK, there’s something about the activity of the muscle that maybe protects this organ from being a common site for metastasis for all types of cancers.’”
With their work, the researchers identified the mechanism behind the preventive effect of exercise. They found that physical activity increases glucose consumption by internal organs, which meansless energy available to the tumor.
Erica Rees-PuniaTrusted Source, Ph.D., MPH, a senior principal scientist in epidemiology and behavioral research at the American Cancer Society, not involved in the study, described the underlying mechanism to MNT:
“Simply put, exercise ‘reprograms’ our organs to require more nutrients. At the same time, healthy organs of exercisers are more easily able to out-compete cancer cells (specifically melanoma cells, in the case of this study) for nutrients. This leaves fewer nutrients available for the tumor to use to grow.”
They looked at 2,734 men and women selected from the Israeli general population who were originally cancer free and between the ages of 25 and 64 who were examined before and after running.
Participants responded to two physical activity questionnaires about vigorous and moderate activity that lasted for 10 minutes. They were followed over a 20-year period.
Additionally, researchers recruited 14 male and female runners ages 25 to 45.
Participants were excluded for being smokers, taking prescribed medications, or having a history of chronic pulmonary, cardiac, metabolic, or orthopedic conditions.
They were also asked to avoid caffeine for 12 hours, food for 3 hours, and strenuous physical activity for at least 24 hours before arriving at the laboratory for testing.
Participants ran for 30 minutes on a treadmill at the highest speed they could manage for the entire duration.
Next, researchers collected ventilator and metabolic measurements using breath-by-breath analysis and monitored the heart rate of participants using a chest strap. They collected blood from the participants before and after they exercised.
In another study, the researchers used an animal model where mice were subjected to exercise regimens.
One group of mice was used as a control. The other was subjected to an exercise training protocol on a treadmill. Mice exercised every other day. Gradually, the researchers increased the duration and intensity of the exercise. This went on for 8 weeks.
They selected female mice because they’ve shown an increased metabolic response to exercise compared with males.
Some of the mice were then injected with melanoma cells. After 4 days of recovery, researchers again subjected these mice to regular exercise on the treadmill for 4 additional weeks.
Later, researchers harvested the lungs, lymph nodes, livers, and skeletal muscles of both sedentary mice and mice subjected to exercise for proteomicTrusted Source and ex vivo metabolic capacity analyses.
“We took organs that usually host metastasis,” Levy told MNT.
“And we said, ‘Let’s dissect those organs and see how these organs behave after long-term physical activity.”
Proteomic analysis of the blood of the routinely active participants showed increased carbohydrate usage after exercise.
Data from the prospective study showed that exercise prior to developing cancer had a modest impact on diagnoses of slow-growing cancer.
However, exercise “significantly reduced the likelihood of highly metastatic cancer,” according to the researchers.
Among the participants studied, those who reported regular aerobic exercise at high intensity had 72% less metastatic cancer than sedentary participants.
In the mouse study, researchers found that mice subjected to exercise prior to being injected with cancer cells were “significantly protected” against metastases in distant organs.
Proteomic and ex vivo metabolic capacity analyses of the mice organs showed that exercise induces catabolic processes, glucose uptake, mitochondrial activity, and GLUT expression.
When researchers looked at the mice organs, they discovered that long-term physical activity changes muscles (increasing muscle mass) and changes organs.
“We discovered that internal organs like lymph nodes, like lung, like liver, those organs that are usually hosting cancer [are] changing when there is chronic physical activity,” Levy told MNT.
“They change in [the] sense that they become super metabolic. And when I say super metabolic, I mean their demand for glucose and demand for their mitochondria is increasing [and] their glucose uptake is increasing. They’re becoming like superhero organs.”
When cancer attempts to attack these organs, it loses the fight, the researchers believe.
Dr. Adrian Cristian, chief of cancer rehabilitation at Miami Cancer Institute, part of Baptist Health South Florida, explained to MNT that with this study, the researchers demonstrated “that exercise induces changes in the micro-environment of cancer cells that make it inhospitable for them to grow when they are out-competed by non-cancer cells for nutrients.”
I have warned numerous times about the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle. Eat less, move more, live longer really works. This study reported by Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter provides further information on that thesis.
A study of sedentary adults at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes found that spending more time standing, rather than sitting, may lower risk.
The 64 study participants, ages 40 to 65, had metabolic syndrome—a cluster of conditions (including high blood sugar, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, large waist circumference, and high blood pressure) that increases risk for developing type 2 diabetes as well as heart disease and stroke.
Participants wore an accelerometer (a device that measures movement) for 26 days. The researchers also measured insulin sensitivity, a measure of how well the body’s cells respond to insulin in the bloodstream. High insulin sensitivity allows glucose to enter cells more effectively, resulting in lower blood sugar. Low insulin sensitivity is a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes.
This study found that more time spent standing was associated with better insulin sensitivity in sedentary adults at increased risk for type 2 diabetes. Other research has found that standing is associated with benefits in healthy adults as well. So, try taking standing breaks if your job or hobby involve lots of sitting time, raise your work surface to create a standing desk, and get up during commercials when watching television and between episodes if you’re streaming shows.
I recently got some very unpleasant news about my personal health.
I suffer from a ‘post nasal drip,’ have all my life. It means that I have mucous dripping from behind my nose down my throat. As a result, I have to spit a lot, have a tender, raw throat because it has to keep contracting and I think I have a bit of a smoker’s deeper voice because of it even though I don’t smoke.
A week or two ago, I noticed that occasionally, when I spat, there was blood in it. This was sporadic, not every time or even every day, So, I thought ‘no big deal.’ However, when it continued over more than a week, I consulted my physician. She said she needed to look at me.
I went in last week and after an examination, she could not find anything wrong. Before I left, however, she said she wanted me to get a chest X Ray because I am 82 years old. I went the next day. On the following day, I was in Costco shopping when my phone rang. It was my doctor calling to tell me that the X Ray showed a mass on my left lung. She said the next step would be to get a CT Scan for more information and then a biopsy.
Exercise is one of the first strategies used to treat obesity-related health problems like Type 2 diabetes and other cardiovascular disease, but scientists don’t understand exactly how it works to improve metabolic health.
To that end, University of Michigan researchers examined the effects of three months of exercise on people with obesity, and found that exercise can favorably modify abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue, the fat tissue just beneath the skin, in ways that can improve metabolic health—even without weight loss.
Surprisingly, moderate and high-intensity exercise yielded the same positive changes in fat tissue composition and structure, and fat cells shrank a bit even without weight loss, said principal investigator Jeffrey Horowitz, U-M professor of kinesiology.
I am thrilled to report that today marks the 22nd anniversary of my retirement. On October 2 of 2000, I bade the financial world adieu and started my life as a guy who didn’t have to get up for work every morning. I got my first job at the age of 10 sweeping the floor of a dry cleaner and continued to work till I reached 60. Although my degree is in Finance, I went into the publishing world writing and editing. I liked markets, but always knew I would write. I wrote and practiced journalism for most of my career, spending 20 years working for Reuters covering international markets and then teaching journalism at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University for several years. Because I had written about markets for 30 years, my boss at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation asked me if I would like to manage some money So, I managed $900 million in bond investments for the final five years of my working life.
No mas. I thought I would celebrate with this biking post. When I was working I used to tell my friends at the office that when I retired I was going to ride my bike on the Chicago lakefront every day. They thought that was funny. I was never more serious. You all know how I ride my bike nearly every day year ’round here in Chicago. I do it because I love it. Period. Everything else is gravy. As you know from my numerous posts on exercise and the brain I absolutely believe that my riding aids in my still thinking straight at the ripe of age of 82. For the record, my family has five cases of Alzheimer’s on both sides – my father’s father, my father’s sister and her daughter. On my mother’s side, she and her sister.
Eat less; move more; live longer … How many times have you read that on these pages? Now comes the National Institutes of Health with more of the same.
Physical activity is vital for your health. Exercise helps you maintain a healthy weight and prevent chronic diseases ranging from heart disease to diabetes. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend that adults get a minimum of 2.5 to 5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity each week, or at least half that amount of vigorous-intensity activity.
Previous studies have found that a wide variety of leisure-time physical activities can provide health benefits. But these studies have largely been done in younger adults. And many did not track different levels of various types of activities.
The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) has issued a four-part focus seminar series on sports cardiology and of the impact of physical activity, cardio-respiratory fitness and exercise training on the general U.S. population and professional athletes’ cardiovascular health.
“The field of sports cardiology is a well-established but still rapidly evolving sub-specialty,” said Jason C. Kovacic, professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and author of the accompanying introduction article to the focus seminar series. “Given the mounting interest in sports cardiology, its key relevance to all cardiovascular practitioners, and the knowledge explosion in this field, we felt it was particularly timely to pay special attention to this broad topic with a JACC Focus Seminar series.”
Doubling to quadrupling the minimum amount of weekly physical activity recommended for U.S. adults may substantially lower the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and other causes, new research finds.
The study, published Monday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, found people who followed the minimum guidelines for moderate or vigorous long-term, leisure physical activity lowered their risk of dying from any cause by as much as 21%. But adults who exercised two to four times the minimum might lower their mortality risk by as much as 31%.
Even moderate physical activity has a positive effect on the brain. DZNE researchers led by Dr. Dr. Ahmad Aziz deduce this from examinations of 2,550 participants of the Bonn “Rhineland Study”. According to their findings, certain areas of the brain are larger in physically active individuals than in those who are less active. In particular, brain regions that have a relatively high oxygen demand benefit from this effect. The research results are published in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Exercise keeps body and mind healthy – but little is known about exactly how and where physical activity affects our brains. “In previous research, the brain was usually considered as a whole,” says Fabienne Fox, neuroscientist and lead author of the current study. “Our goal was to take a more detailed look at the brain and find out which regions of the brain physical activity impacts most.”
People with a condition that restricts blood flow to the legs and feet may be able to improve their long-term walking ability by walking for exercise at a pace that feels painful or uncomfortable, new research suggests.
The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found people with peripheral arterial disease, or PAD, who walked at a speed that caused painful symptoms increased their walking speed and leg function more than those who walked for exercise at a more comfortable pace.
“We were surprised by the results because walking for exercise at a pace that induces pain in the legs among people with PAD has been thought to be associated with damage to leg muscles,” senior study author Dr. Mary McDermott said in a news release. She is a professor of medicine and preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
“Exercise that induces leg pain is beneficial, though difficult,” she said. “We now are working to identify interventions that can make the higher intensity exercise easier – and still beneficial – for people with PAD.”
An estimated 8 to 10 million U.S. adults have PAD, a condition characterized by reduced blood and oxygen flow stemming from a narrowing of the arteries that take blood from the heart to the rest of the body. The condition typically affects the legs and feet, causing symptoms during walking such as cramping, weakness, fatigue, aching, and pain or discomfort that fade within 10 minutes after resting.
Heart health and your health in general are clearly tied to your psychological health. It should come as no surprise to regular readers here that eat less; move more; live longer works.
The American Heart Association has released a scientific statement addressing how psychological health can contribute to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Their analysis of science to date concluded that negative psychological health (depression, chronic stress, anxiety, anger, pessimism, and dissatisfaction with one’s current life) is linked to CVD risk and may play a direct role in both biological processes and downstream lifestyle behaviors that cause CVD. Conversely, positive psychological health can contribute to better cardiovascular health and reduced cardiovascular risk.The majority of research suggests interventions to improve psychological health can have a beneficial impact on cardiovascular health.
Get regular health check-ups that include basic screening for psychological health and seek help from a mental health professional if you have concerns. The study also recommends exercise, meditation, and other self-care as potential ways to promote both mental and physical health.
A recent trial found that getting moving can improve liver health in people with obesity, even without weight loss, according to Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common condition in which excess fat accumulates in the liver, often in response to diets high in starch and sugar. NAFLD is the most common form of liver disease in the U.S. and may be present in more than 90 percent of individuals with obesity and 75 percent with overweight. According to the National Institutes of Health, people with NAFLD are at high risk of developing liver inflammation that can lead to cirrhosis (advanced scarring) and liver failure.
In this trial, 83 Japanese men with obesity participated for three months in either an aerobic exercise program (fast walking or light jogging for 90 minutes three days a week) or calorie restriction with the help of a registered dietitian. In the activity group, muscle strength increased, markers of general inflammation and oxidative stress decreased, and liver health improved, even without weight loss.
This study adds to a large body of science that physical activity, like a healthy diet, has many benefits beyond weight loss.”
Health Secrets of a SuperAger 