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How much can exercise improve health?

by Medindia Content Team on Aug 14 2001 10:54 AM

Researchers are trying to establish whether people who exercise can improve their health or it would not make a diference at all!

Consensus statements published by the American College of Sports Medicine establishes that people who exercise improve their health. But researchers often can't tell how much health-improvement pay-off will result from a given amount of work, or even if a workout will make a difference at all.

I-Min Lee of Harvard Medical School, lead author of one of the 32 articles in a special supplement to ACSM's research journal, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise feels that the consensus would try covering different conditions and diseases, but all may have different associations.

These articles were not meant to raise a doubt on the value of exercise. Rather they support current federa; minimum of atleast 30 minutes of moderate activity atleast 5 days of the week.

In his article, he explores the relationship between physical activity and all-cause mortality,the risk of death at any given age.The article also said that, following at least the minimal guidelines, which can help to burn 1,000 calories a week, reduces all-cause mortality by 20 to 30 percent.

After making a thorough analysis of the benefits of exercise on specific diseases, the evidence we have for physical activity and cardiovascular disease is probably the strongest of any evidence. Lee said that the benefit of at least moderate exercise seems to be a 30 to 40 percent reduction in coronary mortality, but the benefits in reduced risk seem to flatten out with more activity.

Dr. Elliott Danfort, a professor emeritus at the University of Vermont said, that the quality of the research still can be better.He feels that the researchers need to standardise meanings of terms, so that everybody agree on what they are talking about as they always try to see what works best. He also added that studies should be more tightly targeted to exactly how much exercise it takes to get a specific result.

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