Top Ten Medical Reasons to Exercise

“In order to remain healthy, the entire day should be devoted exclusively to ways and means of increasing one’s strength and staying healthy, and the best way to do so is through physical exercise.”— Hippocrates (460-377 BC)

“If you don’t get fit, your body will quit!”—Will Lane M.D.

There are multiple reasons to exercise, but I hope the following will help motivate you to feel good about becoming or continuing to be physically fit:

1.     Sedentary lifestyle is as much of a risk factor for heart disease as uncontrolled high blood pressure, uncontrolled high cholesterol, and smoking 1 pack a day of cigarettes a day.

2.     Being physically fit has been shown to reduce risk of colon cancer and breast cancer.

3.     In animal studies, exercise increased brain neuron connections by 15%.

4.     Someone physically fit but overweight is less likely to have a heart attack than someone thin but sedentary.

5.     Between the ages of 50-70 you will lose about 30% of your muscle mass unless you do some form of strength training.

6.     Weight bearing exercise is necessary to reduce the bone loss that occurs with aging and leads to osteoporosis.

7.     Being overweight and sedentary is a bigger factor in the reduction of growth hormone and testosterone production than aging itself.

8.     In a study done by the Harvard School of Public Health, men who did 30 min of strength training and 30 min of aerobic exercise reduced their risk of diabetes by 60%.

9.     In one study of people suffering from migraines, 40 min of exercise 3 times a week was as effective as a commonly used migraine medicine (Topamax) at preventing migraines.

10.  Many studies in patients with fibromyalgia have shown that warm water aquatic exercise will reduce pain symptoms, improve cognitive function, decrease anxiety and depression and help the patient perceive their condition as less severe.