Saturday, March 7, 2009

10 reasons to do physical exercise (work your body) -- The Benefits of Exercise or Sports

According to the issue HEALTHbeat dated 24 February 2009 published by Harvard Medical School, Exercise is a powerful preventive, and sometimes an antidote, for disability and illness.

Regular physical activity makes an enormous difference to the quality and length of your life, a fact underscored by hundreds of solid studies.

In a nutshell, exercise does the following:

1. Lessens the likelihood of getting heart disease. Even if you already have heart disease, exercise lowers your chances of dying from it.

2. Lowers blood pressure. Long-term hypertension (high blood pressure) doubles or triples the odds of developing heart failure and helps pave the path to other kinds of heart disease, stroke, aortic aneurysm, and kidney disease or failure.

3. Helps prevent diabetes by paring off excess weight. If you have diabetes, exercise helps control blood sugar.

4. Reduces risk for developing cancers of the colon, breast, endometrium (uterine lining), and prostate and cancers in which obesity is a factor.

5. Helps shore up bones, which reach peak density and strength during the first three decades of life.

6. Helps protect joints by easing swelling, pain, and fatigue and by keeping cartilage healthy.

7. May limit and even reverse knee problems by helping to control weight.

8. Lifts spirits by releasing mood-elevating hormones, relieving stress, and promoting a sense of well-being. In some studies, exercising regularly has helped ease mild to moderate depression as effectively as medications.

9. May boost your ability to fend off infection.

10. Adds years to your life. In the long-running Framingham Heart Study, moderate activity tacked on 1.3 years of life for men and 1.5 years of life for women versus low activity. Raising the bar to high activity added 3.7 years for men and 3.5 years for women.

For detailed Information, please visit https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/HEALTHbeat_022409.htm

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