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What's In It For You?

Posted on: Wednesday, 2 March 2005, 03:00 CST

Exercise is important for everyone, but not always for the same reasons.

Few of us are natural athletes. Most will never become NFL quarterbacks, Wimbledon tennis champions, or Olympic figure skaters. So, why bother with exersice? Why spen time running around, jumping around, and getting hot, sweaty, and bored? What the payoff?

Live Long And Prosper

Well, for starters, how about happiness and long life? It sounds like a quack's prescription for snake oil, but according to scientific studies, moderate exercise offers an incredible range of benefits. In addition to helping control your weight, exercise can lower your blood pressure, reduce cholesterol, cut the risk of heart attack, bolster your immunesystem defenses, ease arthritis pains, stave off osteoporosis, fend off some forms of cancer, keep your thinking sharp in old age, and even brighten your mood.

Perhaps most important for people with diabetes, exercise also improves blood glucose control.

"For unknown biological reasons, exercise helps blood sugar [glucose] control," says Madelyn Fernstrom, PhD, CNS, director of the weight management center at the University of Pittsburgh. "Your blood sugar will usually be improved with a modest increase in activity. If I had diabetes, that would be the No. 1 motivator for me."

Slow Down Diabetes

Exercise can reduce the need for diabetes medication or insulin.

According to the massive 2001 study known as the Diabetes Prevention Program, exercise also can slow the progression of prediabetes, which often leads directly to type 2 diabetes. If you're reading this magazine, it's likely you already have diabetes. But your family members, who may share a genetic predisposition to diabetes, might be able to avoid it by getting up and moving around, notes Ann Albright, PhD, RD, of the University of California at San Francisco and chief of the California Diabetes Prevention and Control Program.

"Moderate" means just that. Don't try to run a marathon on your first outing. A brisk walk, for 15 minutes twice a day-or even a shorter walk, if you've been a couch potato for yearswill do you more good than you imagine.

Of course, if you change your routine and start to exercise, you should tell your doctor. He or she will want to monitor you more closely and may want to change your medication.

Exercise For Life

It's never too late to start. It's never too early, either. Through the life span, exercise can:

FIGHT CHILDHOOD OBESITY.

American children have a serious weight problem. The Institute of Medicine (IOM), an arm of the National Academies of Science, reported in September 2004 that about 15 percent of American children and teenagers aged 6 to 19-roughly 9 million kids-are now obese. Obesity rates have doubled among preschoolers and teenagers in the past 30 years. It's more than three times as prevalent among kids aged 6 to 11.

The IOM report urged families and schools to establish healthy diets, cut junk food and sugary sodas, and, of course, promote exercise. Limit your kids' TV time, send them out to play, and encourage schools to expand physical education programs instead of saving money by cutting back on them.

The payoff for the children will be reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, which has been striking American children at progressively younger ages. Exercise also will reduce their risk of developing other chronic conditions, either as children or as adults, and will improve their emotional health, the IOM report said.

IMPROVE TEENS' PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH. For teenagers, physical activity promotes healthier bones and joints, builds lean muscle mass, and can delay the development of high blood pressure. For girls, exercise in their teens, or even earlier in childhood, builds greater bone mass-giving them more protection against osteoporosis when they reach their 60s or 70s.

Exercise also can reduce teenagers' depression and anxiety, heighten their self-esteem, and give them a feeling of social well- being, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That kind of defense against teenage angst might be worth more than even a cure for acne.

REDUCE STRESS AND INCREASE WELL-BEING IN MIDLIFE. For adults in the high-stress midlife years, when family, career, and financial pressures all gang up at once, exercise seems to be a marvelous mood- enhancer. Clinical studies repeatedly conclude that people who are physically active are far less likely to experience depression, tension, confusion, stress, and anxiety.

In addition, men and women both tend to report an improved sense of physical, psychological, and social well-being after taking part in regular physical activity, according to a 1996 U.S. Surgeon General's report on physical activity and health.

Midlife also is the time when such killers as heart disease and cancer first begin to strike broadly, so midlifers may have the most to gain from the reduced death rates that accompany regular exercise. In addition to protecting against cardiovascular disease, exercise appears to cut the risk of developing colon cancer by 40 to 50 percent, breast cancer by up to 40 percent, endometrial cancer by 30 to 40 percent, and prostate cancer by 10 to 30 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute.

KEEP SENIORS HEALTHY AND SELF-SUFFICIENT. Exercise offers great benefits to seniors; it can help them retain their mobility and the independence that mobility brings. Regular, moderate exercise can forestall the muscle wastage and frailty that make it impossible for some elders to care for themselves. Exercise can even rebuild-at least partially-muscles that have been weakened by disuse. It also can help seniors maintain balance, averting falls and broken bones.

The worst fear of many seniors, however, is loss of their mental faculties. Exercise may help here, too. In an array of studies between 1970 and 2003, physical training improved mental function in seniors with dementia. And in separate studies published in September 2004, merely walking appeared to reduce the risk of dementia in both men and women in their 70s or older.

Precisely why exercise improves cognitive function isn't known. Perhaps human beings, young to old, just function better 1 when they move around.

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Covering All The Bases

When you decide to begin exercising, it's easiest to do something that you already know how to do-and you're more likely to stick with it.That's why many public health experts recommend walking as a good first step.

But a well-rounded physical training program includes other elements as well.The major exercise groups include:

Endurance exercises, such as brisk walking, bike-riding, dancing, stair-climbing, or even gardening.These pump up breathing and heart rate, increase energy, build stamina, and improve cardiovascular health.

Strength or resistance exercises, such as weight-lifting, weightpushing, or resistance-band stretching.These help tone muscle, build new muscle mass, improve skeletal health, and reduce the risk of falling. An ideal program exercises all of the major muscle groups at least twice a week.

Stretching exercises, such as side hip rotation or trying to touch your toes.These improve flexibility and freedom of movement. Stretching should be done after endurance or strength routines, when your muscles are warmed up.

Balance exercises, such as side leg raising or standing on one foot for as long as you can.These are particularly important for seniors. Falls are a major cause of the roughly 300,000 U.S. hospital admissions each year for broken hips.

Brace Agnew, former news editor of The Journal of NIH Research, is a science writer and editor in Bethesda, Md.

Copyright American Diabetes Association Mar 2005

Source: Diabetes Forecast

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