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First some good news about exercise (especially if you're lazy).
Hour of Exercise a Week Eases Hypertension - Study
Hour of Exercise a Week Eases Hypertension - Study
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It only takes 60 to 90 minutes of exercise a week to significantly lower blood pressure, Japanese researchers reported on Thursday. That amount of aerobic exercise spread out over a week reduced systolic blood pressure -- the top number on a blood pressure reading -- an average of 12 points and the lower or diastolic reading by 8 points, the researchers found.
"This study confirms the importance of exercise," said Dr. Michael Weber, an editor at the American Journal of Hypertension. "The investigators found a person does not have to spend great amounts of time working out."
Many guidelines currently call for anywhere between half an hour and an hour of moderate exercise on most days of the week to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.
Kazuko Ishikawa-Takata and colleagues at Japan's National Institute of Health and Nutrition tested 207 men and women who had high blood pressure but were otherwise healthy. None exercised regularly. They divided them into five groups who got a range of exercise from none to two hours and more a week. Those in the group that got 60 to 90 minutes of exercise per week had the greatest drop in blood pressure. ("That's only about 8 to 12 minutes of exercise a day." - Dr. Rehert)
"There were no greater reductions in systolic blood pressure with further increases in exercise," the researchers said.
They said their findings should encourage people who think they cannot exercise enough to improve their health. "We should emphasize that our present results should not be viewed as a message against encouraging people to exercise more on a daily basis," the researchers wrote. Click below for the complete story:
And now more research evidence that less weight results in a longer life.
Study: Low-Calorie Diet Can Extend Life
By PAUL RECER, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON - It has long been known that laboratory animals live longer on a low-calorie diet. Now a study suggests that even if sensible eating is delayed until middle age, health can be improved and life extended.
In the study, British researchers compared the effects of different calorie-restricted diets on the mortality of fruit flies. They found that fruit flies on restricted diets lived about 90 days, twice as long as those fed on a normal diet. But the scientists also found that when heavily fed fruit flies were switched at middle age — day 14 to 22 — to leaner diets, then the animals converted from the shorter life pattern of the overfed to the longer-lived pattern of flies that had been on a restricted diet all their lives.
The carry-home message from the study, said Linda Partridge of University College London is that it is never too late to improve health by switching to sensible eating habits.
Partridge said that although the life-extending effects of short rations have never been proven in humans, it has been shown in monkeys, mice, rats and fruit flies that diet restrictions will lead to longer lives.
"There is no reason to suppose it wouldn't apply equally to humans," she said. "There are diet restriction studies now underway with monkeys and all the indications appear the same (as with mice, rats and fruit flies)." Click below for the complete story:
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