We are in the middle of summer and many use the holidays to try to get in shape. The stress of work, broken schedules and family balance is usually overwhelming to take a little time and go to the gym. It is never too late to start exercising, it does not matter if it is July, Monday or Thursday. Making the decision to train will not only make you feel better about yourself, but it will also set your body up for long-term benefits. This is what a new investigation, published in BMJ, defends.
How does exercise influence our health?
En the study, the scientists analyzed the exercise habits of nearly 14.600 participants, aged 40 to 79. They were the ones who self-reported to the researchers over the course of almost eight years. The goal was to learn how their levels of exercise changed and measure how it affected their health. Then, 13 years after the study began, they rechecked them and found that more than 3.100 participants had died.
Of the 3.334 volunteers who did not exercise at the start of the study, one-third increased your activity levels to meet the 150 minutes per week recommended by the World Health Organization, for almost eight years. These people had a 24% less likely to die during the study than those who remained sedentary and without physical exercise.
Even increase sweat time to meet these weekly requirements also made 29% of them less likely to have cardiovascular disease and 11% less likely to die of cancer.
Those people who were initially active above the 150-minute mark per week, and who stopped their training habits to minimize it, at the end of the study continued to see a 20% lower risk of mortality.
As for the those who were active and increased their minutes of activity, obtained the greatest health benefit. If they completed the recommended 2 minutes 3 to 150 times a week, they achieved a 42% less likely to die during the study.
Why does training reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems?
There is a combination of factors, many of which have yet to be discovered, says study author Soren Brage. «We know a lot about the beneficial effects of activity on sugar and fat metabolism, as well as on body weight and the regulation of blood pressure and immune function. These are important risk factors for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.«.
Unlike some previous research that found negative health effects from excessive exercise, this study only showed positive benefits from increasing activity.
«Adding 10 minutes to that brisk daily walk or 2,5 to 5 minutes to that daily commute, depending on intensity, would help. To someone who already trains this might not sound like much, but remember that in the last assessment, the participants were also 7 years older, so it's pretty impressive what this group managed to do.«.