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Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

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Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#31

Post by [deleted] »

Fricken wrote: post #18
nine_k wrote: post #3

> mitochondria, which process energy within cells, showed a significantly decreased capacity to burn both sugar and fat in healthy individuals who get less than the recommended 150 minutes of exercise a week. 150 minutes a week is about than 22 minutes a day. Like 11 minutes twice a day. This looks like a really low effort to rid oneself of the risk of early decline.

A studied showed that elderly asians have better health outcomes that their western counterparts in part due to their practice of sitting on the floor. The added exertion of standing up from the floor rather than a chair makes a material difference in their health.

[deleted]

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#32

Post by makeitdouble »

adam_arthur wrote: post #24
makeitdouble wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> specially intense exercise That sounds like a study that is pretty tough to control for, especially long term and at scale. You'd need to find subjects that are provably capable of sustaining intense exercise as a habit if they wanted to but never did, and won't either for the years you'll be following them. That won't work in the reverse, as people can be consciously or not self adjusting based on the health condi…

A large volume of studies already exist. That intense exercise is good, and even very good for you, is proven as far as reasonably possible given that we can't run deterministically controlled experiments. More evidence may come out that adds nuance, but the effect size is so large that it becomes obvious in the data just from observation. You can cycle or stationary bike if you have bad knees. There are plenty of ex…

I am aware of that for exercising, but was ignorant of what "intense" actually means in this context. And you're right.

Looking around, the simplest wording I get:

> the intensity must be high. This means that you need to really exert yourself so you get out of breath. [https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2026/05/exercise-a-very-lit...]

So if climbing the stairs gets someone out of breath it's intense (and I also see how getting to your limits, whatever they are, can help)

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#33

Post by xboxnolifes »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #11
nine_k wrote: post #3

> mitochondria, which process energy within cells, showed a significantly decreased capacity to burn both sugar and fat in healthy individuals who get less than the recommended 150 minutes of exercise a week. 150 minutes a week is about than 22 minutes a day. Like 11 minutes twice a day. This looks like a really low effort to rid oneself of the risk of early decline.

I've seen studies like this before. They'll suggest that as little as 15 minutes of exercise significantly improves health in some group they studied. My initial assumption was they added 15 minutes of additional exercise. No, they studied people who did literally nothing. Then had them exercise 15 minutes a day. As you might guess, their outcomes improved greatly.

The amount of time in the exercise advice keep getting shorter and shorter. The common advice when I was younger, in the USA, was an hour of exercise. Couldn't get enough people to do it. Then it was 30 minutes. Still couldn't get people to do it. Now the advice has been 15 minutes a day for a while, and we'll still not be able to get people to do it.

The environment and culture needs to be structured such that people get the exercise they need "naturally". The vast majority aren't going to go out of their way for it.

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#34

Post by adam_arthur »

makeitdouble wrote: post #32
adam_arthur wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large volume of studies already exist. That intense exercise is good, and even very good for you, is proven as far as reasonably possible given that we can't run deterministically controlled experiments. More evidence may come out that adds nuance, but the effect size is so large that it becomes obvious in the data just from observation. You can cycle or stationary bike if you have bad knees. There are plenty of ex…

I am aware of that for exercising, but was ignorant of what "intense" actually means in this context. And you're right. Looking around, the simplest wording I get: > the intensity must be high. This means that you need to really exert yourself so you get out of breath. [ https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2026/05/exercise-a-very-lit... ] So if climbing the stairs gets someone out of breath it's intense (and I also see…

Yeah, typically "intense exercise" is implying HIIT style cardio.

More and more studies have been indicating that even just a few minutes of intense exercise can outperform long/slow LISS type cardios.

E.g. 5m all out effort is probably better, or at least equivalent, for health than a 30m moderate effort.

The average person can likely hit the 80/20 benefit threshold at less than 30m/week.

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#35

Post by strbean »

adam_arthur wrote: post #19
jsw97 wrote: post #2

19 subjects, assigned sedentary or active based on habitual physical activity levels. Subjects were screened on basic health measures. The problem with this is that people are sedentary or active for a variety of health-related reasons that are not captured in any screen (esp. the crude one used in this study). As a predictive study, this is fine, sedentarism predicts a lot of bad things. But it doesn't, on its own,…

The principle of what you're stating is true, it could be correlational. But there's an enormous volume of evidence that exercise, especially intense exercise, is better for health than any other intervention, including more sleep, quality of diet, pills+supplements (except those that treat an active illness/disease of course). There's even compelling data showing that moderate drinkers who exercise live longer than…

I'd love to find out if electrical muscle stimulation while sleeping could effectively provide exercise without causing excessive sleep disruption. Could be a zero-effort supplemental form of exercise for sedentary people.

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#36

Post by shermantanktop »

wonderwonder wrote: post #17
fhdkweig wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make stationary bikes that fit under a desk. I've never used or seen one, but they exist. I considered getting one during 2020, but they seemed impossible to source. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=desk+stationary+bike

they make walking pads as well for the desk; I've never used one but have seen some people who seem happy with them

I have a coworker across the country with one. The level of walking that is compatible with an actual conversation on a video call is: slow stroll.

That's better than what i'm doing, hunched over my desk with the metabolic rate of a sleeping lemur, but...it's a slow stroll.

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#37

Post by mrexroad »

Gigachad wrote: post #20
Fricken wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A studied showed that elderly asians have better health outcomes that their western counterparts in part due to their practice of sitting on the floor. The added exertion of standing up from the floor rather than a chair makes a material difference in their health.

At least in China they also have a lot of public parks where they all gather for group exercise with all the other elderly people.

And the Bay Area as well :)

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#38

Post by adam_arthur »

faangguyindia wrote: post #28
adam_arthur wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principle of what you're stating is true, it could be correlational. But there's an enormous volume of evidence that exercise, especially intense exercise, is better for health than any other intervention, including more sleep, quality of diet, pills+supplements (except those that treat an active illness/disease of course). There's even compelling data showing that moderate drinkers who exercise live longer than…

>(Anything above ~15% bodyfat in men has negative implications for lifespan, and ~30% for women; when reviewed at scale) Can you link evidence for this? I stay at 12% year around as male (confirmed via DEXA)

The claim comes from this study:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.7326/M15-1181

Though to be clear, there aren't a ton of studies that look at bodyfat percentage. Most use BMI and similar measures.

Likely overall fat levels matter more than %, I'd guess.

E.g. I'd presume being 15% at very muscular levels is less healthy than 15% at moderate.

(Because absolute fat mass plus visceral fat would be higher)

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#39

Post by Schiendelman »

makeitdouble wrote: post #22
adam_arthur wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principle of what you're stating is true, it could be correlational. But there's an enormous volume of evidence that exercise, especially intense exercise, is better for health than any other intervention, including more sleep, quality of diet, pills+supplements (except those that treat an active illness/disease of course). There's even compelling data showing that moderate drinkers who exercise live longer than…

> specially intense exercise That sounds like a study that is pretty tough to control for, especially long term and at scale. You'd need to find subjects that are provably capable of sustaining intense exercise as a habit if they wanted to but never did, and won't either for the years you'll be following them. That won't work in the reverse, as people can be consciously or not self adjusting based on the health condi…

I challenge you to look for studies. Read a few. There are hundreds on this topic!

Re: Healthy but sedentary people show early decline in cellular energy production

#40

Post by Schiendelman »

strbean wrote: post #35
adam_arthur wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principle of what you're stating is true, it could be correlational. But there's an enormous volume of evidence that exercise, especially intense exercise, is better for health than any other intervention, including more sleep, quality of diet, pills+supplements (except those that treat an active illness/disease of course). There's even compelling data showing that moderate drinkers who exercise live longer than…

I'd love to find out if electrical muscle stimulation while sleeping could effectively provide exercise without causing excessive sleep disruption. Could be a zero-effort supplemental form of exercise for sedentary people.

It can't, because it isn't training your heart and cardiovascular system.
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