1: What if there was a drug that would reduce our risk of dying by 14 percent?
How popular would that drug be?
The good news is that we don’t have to wait. That drug exists. And it goes by the name “exercise.”
“Going from zero weekly exercise to just ninety minutes per week can reduce your risk of dying from all causes by 14 percent,” Peter Attia, MD writes in his powerful book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
If we “adopt only one new set of habits based on reading this book, it must be in the realm of exercise,” Peter suggests.
Why? Because “exercise has the greatest power to determine how we will live out the rest of our lives,” he notes. “It delays the onset of chronic diseases, pretty much across the board, but it is also amazingly effective at extending and improving healthspan.
We all know “exercise is good for us.” But we don’t likely understand just how powerful it is.
“Study after study has found that regular exercisers live as much as a decade longer than sedentary people. When I share these data with my patients,” he notes, “they are always amazed by the magnitude of the benefit. . .
“Not only does it reverse physical decline, which I suppose is somewhat obvious, but it can slow or reverse cognitive decline as well. It also has benefits in terms of emotional health, although those are harder to quantify.”
What if we are among the 77 percent of the US population that does not consistently exercise?
“Now is the time to change that,” Peter writes. “Right now. Even a little bit of daily activity is much better than nothing. . . The benefits of exercise begin with any amount of activity north of zero—even brisk walking—and go up from there. Just as almost any diet represents a vast improvement over eating only fast food, almost any exercise is better than remaining sedentary.”
If we are already exercising, Peter believes, we should consider doing more. “The data on exercise tell us,” he explains, “with great clarity, that the more we do, the better off we will be.”
2: Stanford scientist John Ioannidis has conducted numerous randomized clinical trials comparing exercise-based interventions with multiple classes of pharmaceutical drugs. In study after study,” Peter writes, exercise “performed as well as or better at reducing mortality from coronary heart disease, prediabetes or diabetes, and stroke. . .
“Much of this effect, I think, likely has to do with improved mechanics: exercise strengthens the heart and helps maintain the circulatory system,” Peter writes. “It also improves the health of the mitochondria, the crucial little organelles that produce energy in our cells (among other things).
“That, in turn, improves our ability to metabolize both glucose and fat. Having more muscle mass and stronger muscles helps support and protect the body—and also maintains metabolic health because those muscles consume energy efficiently.
“The list goes on and on,” he explains, “but simply put, exercise helps the human ‘machine’ perform far better for longer.”
3: In fact, the biochemicals of exercise are similar to pharmaceuticals. “To be more precise, it prompts the body to produce its own, endogenous drug-like chemicals,” Peter writes.
“When we are exercising, our muscles generate molecules that send signals to other parts of our bodies, helping to strengthen our immune system and stimulate the growth of new muscle and stronger bones.
“Endurance exercise such as running or cycling helps generate another potent molecule,” he notes, “that improves the health and function of the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays an essential role in memory.
“Exercise helps keep the brain vasculature healthy, and it may also help preserve brain volume. This is why I view exercise as a particularly important part of the tool kit for patients [hyperlink] at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.”
Exercise not only allows us to live longer, it also improves the quality of those years.
“The data demonstrating the effectiveness of exercise on lifespan are as close to irrefutable as one can find in all human biology. Yet if anything, I think exercise is even more effective at preserving healthspan than extending lifespan,” he summarizes. “I tell my patients that even if exercise shortened your life by a year (which it clearly does not), it would still be worthwhile purely for the healthspan benefits, especially in middle age and beyond.
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: Do I exercise consistently? If not, what’s in the way? If so, how might I improve what I’m doing?
Action: Continue reading RiseWithDrew this week!
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