Study Says 22 Minutes of Daily Exercise Fights 19 Serious Conditions
You know that you should be exercising more, but exactly how much should you do a day to reduce your risk of disease? Well, the NHS guidelines are a good place to start. It recommends 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity for overall health.
Now, a new study has reiterated exactly why that's a vert good aim. In fact, the researchers of the paper, published in Preventing Chronic Disease, said that hitting that mark is such an indicator of health risk that everyone should be quizzed about their activity levels during health assessments.
The research was designed to explore whether exercise can be classed as a "vital sign" of health, in the same way temperature, pulse rate, breathing and blood pressure are.
The Study
Despite evidence supporting physical activity as a key element of health, it's rarely measured or managed in primary care, said the researchers from the University of Iowa.
They wanted to see if it was worth screening patients for physical inactivity. The idea is that finding out how regularly someone exercises could help easily flag their health status. So they asked people attending checkups about their activity status and collected information on their resting pulse and disease diagnoses.
The exercise screening questions were:
On average, how many days per week do you engage in moderate to vigorous exercise, like a brisk walk? (0-7 days)
On average, how many minutes do you engage in exercise at this level?
The Results
Of the 7,261 patients who were screened, 60 per cent of them were considered active, 36% were insufficiently active, and 4 per cent were inactive. This is similar to general stats in the UK that show around 63.1 per cent of the population meet the Chief Medical Officer's guidelines of doing 150 minutes of activity a week.
People who reported the highest level of physical activity, exercising moderately to vigorously for at least 150 minutes per week – or for 22 minutes a day – were at a significantly lower risk of having 19 chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease and diabetes.
Those who did the lowest amount of exercise had the highest risk of all 19 diseases.
Exercise can be considered a vital sign because of how much activity levels can tell us about someone's health and health risk. By screening people, you can assure early intervention and support people to increasing their movement.
What This Means For Us
Firstly, this means that doing 22 minutes of exercise a day cuts your risk of a long list of chronic diseases.
Secondly, it suggests that exercise really can be classed as a vital sign of your health. Unlike other vital signs, though, you don't need professional medical equipment to monitor it. You likely already know how much movement you're doing, and if you don't pay attention to it then it's pretty easy to measure. That means you can monitor your own health risk.
Finally, the effectiveness of exercise as a sign of health risk means it should be included in medical screening, say researchers.
'This two-question survey typically takes fewer than 30 seconds for a patient to complete [...] But it can tell us a whole lot about that patient's overall health,' says Lucas Carr, associate professor in the Department of Health and Human Physiology at Iowa.
The Takeaway
Move every day to reduce your risk of disease. Moderate-to-vigorous activity can include brisk walking, jogging, strength training and anything else that gets your heart rate up, so you can choose movement that suits you.
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