The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
well.blogs.nytimes.com
The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
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Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#2I'm glad we're getting a better understanding of how much these variables contribute toward longevity and well-being. Now we just have to come up with a plan to deal with the challenges of people living far longer.
I don't know if I'm alone in noticing this, but there appears to be a larger divide in society along these lines opening up. More people seem to be exercising than ever - almost every guy I know has a gym membership, is taking part in a sport, or goes hiking, or whatever - where previously the same people may have been thin/healthy but sedentary.
On the other side of things, it appears that more people seem to be simply getting more fat and more sedentary. Where once there was thin/average and sedentary | mildly overweight and sedentary, it seems to be dividing to thin/average and pretty active | very fat and very sedentary.
That is all from personal observations, but it will be interesting to see the physical composition of society in 5-10 years time. What was once overweight has simply become normal, what was "fat" has now become huge and what was once a healthy weight has become the new thin.
Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#3I think a lack of exersize throughout the day is why guys today are going bald earlier than in previous generations. I think high intensity exercises for 3 min every 1-2 hours throughout the day is reversing my hair loss. I'll be making a blog post on it soon with evidence of my progress.
Since August of 2014 I had been losing my hair. More and more of it was showing up in the sink drain. Earlier this year I got worried because it increased. I wasn't sure if it was a temporary thing due to stress or illness so I started saving up the little clumps of hair between paper towels and date stamping them. It just kept getting worse and worse. I got a blood test to check hormone levels and find out if everything's ok. I'm waiting on the results.
Last month I got tired of it all, and decided to experiment as a last ditch effort to prevent baldness in my late 20s. I started short but high intensity exersizes every 1 hour, for about 2-3 minutes. After only 1 week new hair has started sprouting up on my scalp. And the amount I've seen in the sink drain has gone down drastically. This is very odd because there's a huge delay in when hair grows and falls (often months) not 1 week. So I'm convinced it's the exersize that's increased circulation, jump started cell growth, and maintained healthy hormone levels. I need to test this out in the long term and try to get other guys to participate. I doubt it's a coincidence because 1 week I skipped my exercises and my hair growth decreased a bit and hair loss increased a tiny bit.
tl;dr The right dose of exersize for a healthy head of hair. Possibly.
Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#4I think a lack of exersize throughout the day is why guys today are going bald earlier than in previous generations. I think high intensity exercises for 3 min every 1-2 hours throughout the day is reversing my hair loss. I'll be making a blog post on it soon with evidence of my progress. Since August of 2014 I had been losing my hair. More and more of it was showing up in the sink drain. Earlier this year I got worr…
I started losing mine at 17 and I worked out/moved a lot at the time (played 2 sports + fun activities) so I doubt there is a connection there.
Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#5Now we need someone to combine these two to give us a picture the whole parameter space. Wouldn't a 3d graph by awesome here? Premature death rate on the Z axis, minutes of weekly exercise and percentage that is beyond a given intensity threshold on the X and Y? You could then compare that to the same thing, except using average intensity as the metric instead of amount of time spent over a threshold.
450 minutes per week was optimal when it was mostly light exercise, and intense exercise is more beneficial, with diminishing returns after 30 minutes per week. But if you do a higher percentage of intense exercise, does the optimal time per week decrease? (Or maybe even increase as you get beyond a certain fitness threshold! Although I somewhat doubt that.)
Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#6I always wonder to what degree this kind of study might invert causality: that is, people who are subclinically "ill" may be less likely to exercise in the first place because it is harder or less pleasant for them. Someone with, for example, undiagnosed but significant cardiovascular disease (unfortunately very common: in many cases the first sign anyone recognizes as concerning is a heart attack) is likely to have some degree of decreased exercise tolerance and discomfort at longer durations and intensities -- and thus will be less likely to meet the recommendations.
Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#7Studies like these always make me think how little we know about human body. I wonder when are we going to stop doing these kind of studies and learn from human body as purely engineering system. By simulating it at a molecular level and understanding it that way.
Where are the chips that mimic cells and help create complete simulation of a trillion+ cell system? We need Elon Musk of human body :)
Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#8Studies like these always make me think how little we know about human body. I wonder when are we going to stop doing these kind of studies and learn from human body as purely engineering system. By simulating it at a molecular level and understanding it that way. Where are the chips that mimic cells and help create complete simulation of a trillion+ cell system? We need Elon Musk of human body :)
How about simply being able to better monitor/measure changes in the body?
Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#9I always wonder to what degree this kind of study might invert causality: that is, people who are subclinically "ill" may be less likely to exercise in the first place because it is harder or less pleasant for them. Someone with, for example, undiagnosed but significant cardiovascular disease (unfortunately very common: in many cases the first sign anyone recognizes as concerning is a heart attack) is likely to have…
Or indeed other causes which could create an accidental correlation. The more you eat the fatter you're likely to be, the fatter you are the harder exercise is, the less of it you're likely to do. The more you smoke, the more out of breath you'll get when exercising, the less of it you're likely to do.
These are two examples I personally feel contribute to my not getting as much exercise as I did 10 years ago. If I die early is it that I haven't exercised enough, or that I had an unhealthy diet and smoked a lot of cigarettes? (I'm not saying lack of exercise doesn't contribute, just that picking it out on its own doesn't necessarily show the full story.)
Additionally, given how well-known the basic concept of "exercise is healthy" is, I would imagine there would likely be some correlation between people who exercise specifically for that purpose (rather than because they enjoy it) and who also take other steps to stay healthy (whether that's having a good diet, or taking vitamins, or.. whatever).
Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life
#10I think a lack of exersize throughout the day is why guys today are going bald earlier than in previous generations. I think high intensity exercises for 3 min every 1-2 hours throughout the day is reversing my hair loss. I'll be making a blog post on it soon with evidence of my progress. Since August of 2014 I had been losing my hair. More and more of it was showing up in the sink drain. Earlier this year I got worr…
I started losing mine at 17 and I worked out/moved a lot at the time (played 2 sports + fun activities) so I doubt there is a connection there.
Your single point of data (anecdote) isn't really any more useful than his. I know at least one very old person who has smoked all their life, for example.