New study proves: Exercise leads to better health – Inactivity can lead to early death
How much disease is caused by inactivity? A group from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has now looked at this question again. The group studied the situation in 168 countries around the world. Among them were both very poor and very rich countries. The study is called “Physical inactivity and non-communicable disease burden in low-income, middle-income and high-income countries” and was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
It is probably clear to all of You that exercise and sporting activity are important. But how important are they and are there differences in the individual countries?
7.2% of all deaths can be attributed to inactivity, and the figure for heart disease was as high as 7.6%. A distinction can be made between country groups. Countries in the middle of the scale between rich and poor (middle-income countries, especially Latin America and the Caribbean) are most affected.
The figures referred to many different non-infectious diseases such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, dementia, depression, type II diabetes, stroke as well as various cancers. Here, too, distinctions can be made. The hardest hit are the dementia diseases, where 8.1% of all deaths were due to inactivity. A total of 10 chronic diseases were included in the study.
Although the findings are not new, they are still important. The study was able to highlight the great importance of activity.
The difference of activity and inactivity was set at 150 minutes of low intensity exercise and 75 minutes of high intensity exercise per week. We want to draw special attention to the lower intensity. This includes walking, but also walking during work, climbing stairs (instead of using the lift!), activities during work and of course sports. Walking belongs in this category, jogging and workouts belong in the higher category.
How can we influence our health ourselves?
The publication shows that we have a problem with activity worldwide, not just here. We have already dealt a lot with chronic diseases in this blog. In the process, the two most important pillars that we ourselves can more or less influence in shaping our lifestyle have been addressed again and again: Diet and exercise.
We would like to give some further tips here, because of course we do not have everything in our own hands.
As for physical activity, we firmly believe that it should take place primarily in the great outdoors; that it should lead to a rejoicing of the body; that breathing in the fresh air is also part of it. You can easily tell that we are not necessarily the biggest fans of the fitness industry. That’s not to say that a workout in the gym isn’t still better than doing nothing at all, and that a jog in the city isn’t good too.
We have already provided basic information on nutrition in several articles. Here are a few more: As fresh as possible, as little pollutant treatment as possible, if possible from the open air, not the greenhouse, process as quickly as possible.
When it comes to food, it is more difficult for us to control everything, because there are supply chains, we have to rely on the information provided by producers and distributors, and so on (not everything that says organic is organic).
So what about the other factors that influence our health that we don’t have control over? Again, let’s just give a few examples: Toxins from the air, soil and water, toxins in the food we eat, fine dust, micro plastics and medicines we have to take. These are stresses to which each of us is exposed to a greater or lesser extent and which massively influence our organs, our metabolism and above all the activity of our cells.
Here it should only be pointed out once again that continuous prevention is absolutely advisable, because we cannot escape these influences. The doctors and consultants of the Network Globalhealth / Extended Medicine recommend the preventive intake of Memphosan capsules, the dietary supplement developed by the Network, which is the only product in Europe containing the highly enriched PPC from the soybean, which can influence the activity of the membranes.
Here is the study
Katzmarzyk PT, Friedenreich C, Shiroma EJ, et al
Physical inactivity and non-communicable disease burden in low-income, middle-income and high-income countries
British Journal of Sports Medicine Published Online First: 29 March 2021. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2020-103640
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/03/01/bjsports-2020-103640