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The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

well.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#31

Post by lkesteloot »

derefr wrote: post #27
lkesteloot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well-run study should control for weight and smoking. But the undiagnosed cardiovascular disease can't be controlled for. Exercise is much harder for me than for others, for example, and I don't know why.

Do your lungs/throat clog up or shut down? It could be asthma, or, more interestingly, subclinical cystic fibrosis. (CF requires a mutation on two genes, and it's very apparent even from childhood when you have the full form; but there are phenotypic differences in people who only have one of the mutations, such as being resistant to some parasites which are blocked by mucosal thickening(!). The implications of the s…

No, my heart rate goes up (like everyone else's) but doesn't come back down for a while (10 minutes?). I have no endurance and resting between workouts doesn't recharge me.

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#32

Post by griffinmahon »

bhaumik wrote: post #30

>The sweet spot for exercise benefits, however, came among those who tripled the recommended level of exercise, working out moderately, mostly by walking, for 450 minutes per week, or a little more than an hour per day. Those people were 39 percent less likely to die prematurely than people who never exercised.

This is like that one TED talk on longevity that found green zones where people lived much longer. One factor found in these people's lives was an ambulatory day, just generally walking a lot -- but, surprisingly, none of these groups went out of their way to exercise.

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#33

Post by benatkin »

benihana wrote: post #11

For me it always comes back to: what are people's long, long term goals. Overall? Is it a longer life? Do you want to live an extra five years? I personally don't think that's a good goal. I'd much rather be in good shape, mobile, healthy and relatively pain free for my 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and as far into my 70s as I can manage than to increase my lifespan from 85-90. It's way less about eking out a few more years of…

Fortunately this study seems to say you can have your cake and eat it too.

Whether running or weight training, high intensity exercise is much more fun that moderate intensity exercise. I started going to a personal trainer to build strength and pushing myself when running, and not only is it more effective, it's a lot more fun.

If you're walking 6 miles or biking 15 miles a day to commute, maybe that's not such a great idea. It isn't that much fun, isn't really much better for the environment, and it might actually shave a couple of years off your life. That sort of constant exercise isn't going to be very intense.

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#34

Post by 300bps »

lkesteloot wrote: post #19
corin_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

A well-run study should control for weight and smoking. But the undiagnosed cardiovascular disease can't be controlled for. Exercise is much harder for me than for others, for example, and I don't know why.

3% of white people in the U.S. are affected to varying degrees by a genetic disorder called a Alpha 1 Antitrypsin Deficiency. I found out I had the moderate form(SZ) from 23andme.com. I've never been able to exercise as well as anyone else.

It is a genetic liver disease that causes harm to your lungs.

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#35

Post by brlewis »

nidieunimaitre wrote: post #6

I 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…

You're not the first to wonder about this. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62370/ "It should be noted that while these results may reflect the effect of exercise patterns on mortality, reverse causation is also possible—that the results reflect instead the effect of health on physical activity."

But what if you studied people who made a decision to change their exercise habits, and checked if it made a difference in general health?

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#36

Post by IndianAstronaut »

griffinmahon wrote: post #32
bhaumik wrote: post #30

>The sweet spot for exercise benefits, however, came among those who tripled the recommended level of exercise, working out moderately, mostly by walking, for 450 minutes per week, or a little more than an hour per day. Those people were 39 percent less likely to die prematurely than people who never exercised.

This is like that one TED talk on longevity that found green zones where people lived much longer. One factor found in these people's lives was an ambulatory day, just generally walking a lot -- but, surprisingly, none of these groups went out of their way to exercise.

I wonder if we integrated regular walking into our city planning that we could reduce cardiovascular disease and obesity.

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#37

Post by dragonwriter »

brlewis wrote: post #35
nidieunimaitre wrote: post #6

I 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…

You're not the first to wonder about this. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62370/ "It should be noted that while these results may reflect the effect of exercise patterns on mortality, reverse causation is also possible—that the results reflect instead the effect of health on physical activity." But what if you studied people who made a decision to change their exercise habits, and checked if it made a differenc…

That would seem to be subject to the same basic problem; whether people make a decision to add exercise may well be strongly affected by their experience with activity eighth may be affected by the same kind of subclinical condition that itself is a mortality predictor discussed up thread.

Of course the potential for such inverted causality is a cause for developing and testing hypotheses about the alternative explanations, not a reason to casually dismiss the study or the more obvious conclusion on the causal relationship.

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#38

Post by djrtwo »

paulsutter wrote: post #20
benihana wrote: post #11

For me it always comes back to: what are people's long, long term goals. Overall? Is it a longer life? Do you want to live an extra five years? I personally don't think that's a good goal. I'd much rather be in good shape, mobile, healthy and relatively pain free for my 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and as far into my 70s as I can manage than to increase my lifespan from 85-90. It's way less about eking out a few more years of…

What part of the article gave you the impression that an exercise related reduced chance of death in a given year would cause a person to be in worse shape or less mobile/healthy/pain free? Your conclusion is counterintuitive, so I can only assume you have an interesting basis for your position. I ask because a naive reader might assume that you're just making a dismissive middlebrow comment. Which would fall into th…

He is not drawing that conclusion. He is just questioning people's insentives for staying in shape. You get longevity, but actually the great part is you feel better day to day. It's like telling a smoker to quit because he'll feel better day to day breathing and being able to walk longer without catching their breath rather than telling him to quit because he'll die of cancer.

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#39

Post by 31reasons »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29
niels_olson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> simulating it at a molecular level It's a work in progress http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/milic1/ Eukaryotic cells are much more complicated though. It has been estimated we have done 1% of the biological experiments necessary to figure out how a human actually works. Anybody want to fund my prostate cancer biomarker discovery project?

> Anybody want to fund my prostate cancer biomarker discovery project? Only if you'll fund my endometriosis genome study (I need 25k participants) and the resulting CRISPR/Cas9 gene variant protocol trials ;)

Speaking of CRISPR, how big of a discovery/invention is that ? Is it going to change medicine forever ?

Re: The Right Dose of Exercise for a Longer Life

#40

Post by anabis »

lkesteloot wrote: post #31
derefr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your lungs/throat clog up or shut down? It could be asthma, or, more interestingly, subclinical cystic fibrosis. (CF requires a mutation on two genes, and it's very apparent even from childhood when you have the full form; but there are phenotypic differences in people who only have one of the mutations, such as being resistant to some parasites which are blocked by mucosal thickening(!). The implications of the s…

No, my heart rate goes up (like everyone else's) but doesn't come back down for a while (10 minutes?). I have no endurance and resting between workouts doesn't recharge me.

Completely anecdotal but low blood sugar does that to me.

Having a good sleep and some sugar before improves the condition.

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