What we found
Originally shared by Rob Jongschaap
What we found
We wanted to understand how daily light physical activity affects people’s metabolic health and their risk of premature death. We carried out a meta-analysis, searching through all the research published to date and averaging out the combined results.
We looked at both laboratory studies of groups of around ten to 40 participants, which show what happens immediately to our bodies when we interrupt long periods of sitting; and long-term studies of thousands of people, which provide insight into the effects of light exercise over several years.
We found that doing twice as much light activity cuts your risk of premature death by almost 30%. This was even after accounting for levels of moderate to vigorous activity and other factors such as smoking.
This means that if you increase the amount you move around each day from one hour to two hours, for example, you cut your risk by 30%. But if you currently do three hours and you raise it to six hours, you cut your risk by the same amount. It’s a law of diminishing returns: if you do little to start with, you get a big benefit because your initial risk is so high.
We also found that moving around positively affects the way the human body regulates blood sugar and insulin in the short term. This matters because our bodies only function adequately when blood sugar levels remain constant. If the blood sugar or insulin become too high, it can lead to serious health complications.
http://theconversation.com/moving-around-has-big-health-benefits-and-now-we-know-how-big-95808
What we found
We wanted to understand how daily light physical activity affects people’s metabolic health and their risk of premature death. We carried out a meta-analysis, searching through all the research published to date and averaging out the combined results.
We looked at both laboratory studies of groups of around ten to 40 participants, which show what happens immediately to our bodies when we interrupt long periods of sitting; and long-term studies of thousands of people, which provide insight into the effects of light exercise over several years.
We found that doing twice as much light activity cuts your risk of premature death by almost 30%. This was even after accounting for levels of moderate to vigorous activity and other factors such as smoking.
This means that if you increase the amount you move around each day from one hour to two hours, for example, you cut your risk by 30%. But if you currently do three hours and you raise it to six hours, you cut your risk by the same amount. It’s a law of diminishing returns: if you do little to start with, you get a big benefit because your initial risk is so high.
We also found that moving around positively affects the way the human body regulates blood sugar and insulin in the short term. This matters because our bodies only function adequately when blood sugar levels remain constant. If the blood sugar or insulin become too high, it can lead to serious health complications.
http://theconversation.com/moving-around-has-big-health-benefits-and-now-we-know-how-big-95808
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