Exercise is beneficial, whatever its duration!

Long-term, regular exercise offers countless benefits, including reduced cardiovascular disease risk, faster metabolism, weight control, stronger bones, muscles and heart muscle, lower blood pressure, and protection against type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

Many studies have shown that regular moderate-intensity exercise totaling at least 150 minutes a week benefits our body.

How should we arrange exercise frequency?

Should it be spread across days, or is 150 minutes on one day enough? JAMA Internal Medicinepublished a study seeking to answer this question.

The study examined people over age 40, numbering 63.591 participants, between 1994-2008.

Participants were divided into groups:

1. Moderate-intensity activity totaling 150 minutes or vigorous activity totaling 75 minutes over no more than two days a week
2. Moderate-intensity activity totaling 150 minutes or vigorous activity totaling 75 minutes over at least three days a week
3. Less than a weekly total of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity
4. Physically inactive.

During the study, 2.780 people died of cardiovascular diseases and 2.526 of cancer, with 8.802 deaths overall.

The results showed that exercise reduced the risk of death to varying degrees regardless of intensity and timing (groups 1, 2 and 3), but the most effective and protective pattern was that of group 2.

By choosing exercise appropriate to our age and fitness and remaining physically active, even for short periods or infrequently, we can reduce the risk of many diseases.

Short exercise sessions are beneficial too

Brain, Behavior and Immunity published another recent study examining the effects of exercise sessions lasting just 20 minutes on the immune system.

According to the research results:

During exercise, to adapt to exercise conditions, the body activates the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system increases heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate, enabling the body to adapt to exercise. It produces these effects through hormones released into the blood, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine. These hormones also bind to receptors on immune cells, inhibiting the release of monocyte cytokines (TNF).

Monocytes are a type of white blood cell (immune system cell). They help fight bacteria during infection. Cytokines are proteins released by these cells. TNF is one of these cytokines. By stimulating the immune system, TNF triggers increases in white blood cell numbers, their maturation and recruitment to the infection site, and death of damaged or cancerous cells. Cytokines and white blood cells perform these functions to generate an immune response.

Inflammation is necessary for the body to generate an immune response, but persistent inflammation (chronic inflammation) keeps the body under continuous stress, predisposing to many diseases, including diabetes, obesity, celiac disease, arthritis, fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Returning to exercise, through hormones released following sympathetic system activation, exercise suppresses chronic inflammation in the body and thereby reduces the risk of the diseases listed above.

How much exercise prevents chronic inflammation?

Another finding was that 20-30 minutes of brisk walking was sufficient to observe exercise’s anti-inflammatory effect, reducing TNF release by %5.

In conclusion, making exercise part of your life offers many health benefits, whatever its duration.