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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Be More Physical Active to Prolong Lifespan! Exercise or physical activity plays an important role in keeping a person’s health. The American Heart Organization (AHA) recommend that a person can reduce the risk of developing heart disease by having at least 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise, for instance, brisk walking. In other words, he or she should aim to exercise 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week. On January 22, 2008, researchers from Veterans Affairs (VA) reported in the AHA’s journal ‘Circulation’ that frequent exercise could reduce the risk of death in men. Over a period of 8 year, researchers gathered fitness data of 15,660 male VA patients having an average age of 60 undergoing treadmill testing for various medical reasons. These participants were then assigned to 1 of 4 groups based on their level of fitness. Their findings showed that mortality risk directly correlated with fitness level. Only 8 percent of men in the very highly fit group died as compared with 44 percent in the least fit group. 30 and 15 percent of men died in the moderately fit and highly fit groups respectively. The researchers stressed that even 30 minutes of brisk walking, 5 days a week, could reduce mortality risk by at least 50 percent. In a study on 3,500 women and men with coronary heart disease over an 18-year period, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway argued that by exercising once a week, the life expectancy for people with heart disease could be prolonged.
They reported in their paper, published on October 21, 2008 in the ‘European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation’, that mortality was reduced by 30 percent among women, 20 percent among men, who exercised once a week compared to those who did not exercise at all. In fact, women who exercised more than 30 minutes each time could reduce mortality by up to 50 percent. Meanwhile, Swedish researchers suggested in March 2009 in the ‘British Medical Journal’ that even doing more physical activities like gardening and sports in middle age could help prolong lifespan. Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden examined 2,205 Swedish men aged 50 and checked their progress over a period of 32 years. These participants were categorized into 3 groups: low, medium or high activity. At the end of the study, they found that men who exercised more had longer lifespan. Those who were doing high levels of activity at the age of 50 were expected to live 2.3 years longer than sedentary men and 1.1 years longer than those who exercised moderately. A more recent study conducted by researchers from Taiwan's National Health Research Institutes revealed that doing just 15 minutes of moderate exercise (like brisk walking) a day would benefit anyone: men, women, the young and old, smokers, healthy and unhealthy one. They published their findings in August 2011 in medical journal ‘The Lancet’. Being consistent with similar studies in the past using Caucasian participants, the new findings were the first to suggest a minimum level of exercise necessary. None of the other studies were able to conclude what specified amount of exercise would be sufficient. After tracking the health records and reported levels of physical activity of 416,000 participants every year for 13 years and taking into account of differences in age, weight, sex and a range of heart disease risk factors, researchers found that just 15 minutes of moderate exercise a day raised life expectancy by 3 years compared with those who remained inactive. According to researchers, daily exercise was also associated with a lower incidence of cancer, and appeared to reduce cancer-related deaths in 1 person in 10. It is hoped that the new findings might motivate more inactive people to start engaging with physical activity as they need to allocate merely 15 minutes a day instead of the recommended 30 minutes that is more difficult to achieve.
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