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Healthy Living
Exercise Capacity: The Key To A Long And Healthy Life
If you were asked to name the most accurate predictor of a person's potential lifespan, what would you say?
Smoking habits? Heart health? The presence of disease, like diabetes?
All good guesses. But according to new research, it's none of the above.
The miracle life extension therapy that's totally free
In this new study, published in this month's New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Stanford University clearly show that the most powerful predictor of lifespan is something completely different. Something that is completely within our control, totally assessable, has no negative side effects - and is totally free! So what is this miracle health cure?
The study's authors call it 'exercise capacity'. But what it really boils down to is fitness level - how much can your body do and how much oxygen does it need to do it?
In this study, the researchers assessed the exercise capacities of 6,213 men (average age 59 years) through a treadmill test. Each man walked on the treadmill at progressive speeds and inclines, while sensors monitored his heart rate and a mask assessed oxygen and carbon dioxide flow. Each continued walking or running until he was exhausted, reached maximum safe heart rate, or developed chest pain or other symptoms. The researchers were able to estimate each man's maximal exercise capacity based on a lifestyle questionnaire, and the treadmill programmes were adjusted accordingly, so most men reached that point within 8 to 12 minutes.
Then the researchers translated each man's maximal exercise capacity into metabolic equivalents, or METs. (One MET is considered roughly equal to the amount of oxygen used by the average seated person. Two METs roughly equates to walking at a rate of less than two miles per hour, while eight METs represents the oxygen used while jogging at a speed of six miles per hour.)
They also assessed each man's health history, taking note of existing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cigarette use, and hypertension. A total of 3,678 men had existing cardiovascular disease, while 2,534 had no evidence of CVD.
Fitness cut the risk of death four-fold
The Stanford scientists followed up with each man years later (the average follow up period was six years). And they found that, after adjustment for age, the man's exercise capacity was the best way to predict which men would have died during follow up and which would live - and this held true for men with and without cardiovascular disease. In both groups, the men with the lowest exercise capacities (between 1.0 and 4.9 MET for people with cardiovascular disease) had about FOUR TIMES the risk of death than men with the highest exercise capacities (10.7 MET or more for cardiovascular disease patients).
If you're a beginning exerciser, this may seem like an intimidating goal. But take heart - even small improvements in exercise capacity can reap big benefits. As the study's authors put it, 'Among subjects with cardiovascular disease...we observed a near linear reduction in risk with increasing quintiles of fitness.' In other words, each improvement in fitness, no matter how slight it may seem, can help lengthen your life. So even if you never get to 'maximal exercise capacity' of 10.7 MET or more, you're still doing something good for yourself.
And, according to researcher T. Edwin Atwood: 'It's not how long you exercise...It doesn't take marathons or running. Walking briskly every day for half an hour is a great risk modifier.'
Obviously giving up smoking and following a healthy diet will help increase your MET score too.
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