Feeling isolated? This simple activity could boost your mental well-being.
Over 200 studies confirm it: exercise is a powerful tool against major depressive disorder. But which are best, and for whom?
The activity has a surprising cognitive edge over other types of workout.
How mindfulness reshapes the mind-body connection, making workouts more effective than ever before.
The study involved over half-a-million Canadians who were paid to increase their step count over about six months.
The 16-week study gave people the choice between group running or taking antidepressants.
Thirty minutes per week of this activity lowers the risk of early death, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
Thirty minutes per week of this activity lowers the risk of early death, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
People who do muscle strengthening activities for 30 to 60 minutes per week, are at a 10 to 20 percent lower risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and early death.
Muscles, or more precisely, skeletal muscles are important for energy production, body movement, and generally the quality of human life.
Adults’ skeletal muscle health greatly benefits from regular muscle strengthening activities such as heavy gardening, digging and shovelling, cycling, hill walking, resistance band exercises, lunges, sit-ups, push-ups, squats, and lifting weights.
Past studies have found that muscle strengthening exercises are associated with longevity, but the optimal dose was unknown.
For this reason, a research team analysed data from sixteen studies on associations between muscle strengthening activities and health outcomes in adults.
They found that muscle strengthening activities reduced diabetes, lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, and death up to 17 percent.
People who performed muscle strengthening activities for 30 to 60 minutes per week benefited most as the risk of CVD, cancer and all causes of death was reduced up to 20 percent.
The risk of diabetes remarkably went down with 60 minutes muscle strengthening once-a-week activities were carried out.
However, combination of muscle strengthening and aerobic exercises seem to offer maximum risk reduction.
These two activities together reduced risk of death for CVD by 46 percent, all-causes by 40 percent, and cancer by 28 percent.
The authors concluded:
“The combination of muscle strengthening and aerobic activities may provide a greater benefit for reducing all-cause, [cardiovascular disease], and total cancer mortality.
Given that the available data are limited, further studies—such as studies focusing on a more diverse population—are needed to increase the certainty of the evidence.”
The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (Momma et al., 2022).
This number of steps every day can lower the risk of early death by 70 percent.
This number of steps every day can lower the risk of early death by 70 percent.
Walking 7,000 steps (5.6 km or 3 miles) each day lowers the risk of death by about two-thirds in adults compared to those who walk less.
A study has found that middle-aged adults who walked at least 7,000 steps each day had a 50 to 70 percent lower risk of dying prematurely.
They also say that walking faster or taking more steps than 10,000 a day didn’t reduce the risk of death any further.
The commonly-repeated advice on walking 10,000 steps every day is not based on scientific evidence, but actually is from a Japanese company marketing a pedometer.
Therefore, the researchers wanted to find out whether this 10,000 steps a day target can really provide health benefits and longevity.
Dr Amanda Paluch and her team began with one question:
“How many steps per day do we need for health benefits?
That would be great to know for a public health message or for clinician-patient communication.”
For this study, 2,110 participants aged 38 to 50 years were followed for 11 years.
They were divided into three groups: high- step volume for more than 10,000 steps a day, moderate for 7,000 to 9,999 steps a day, and low for less than 7,000 steps a day.
Dr Paluch said:
“You see this gradual risk reduction in mortality as you get more steps.
There were substantial health benefits between 7,000 and 10,000 steps but we didn’t see an additional benefit from going beyond 10,000 steps.
For people at 4,000 steps, getting to 5,000 is meaningful.
And from 5,000 to 6,000 steps, there is an incremental risk reduction in all-cause mortality up to about 10,000 steps.”
While previous studies related to steps have often been focused on older adults, this research involved middle-aged people.
The results suggest that people would stay healthier and live longer if they added this amount of regular steps to their everyday lives.
Dr Paluch said:
“Preventing those deaths before average life expectancy — that is a big deal.
Showing that steps per day could be associated with premature mortality is a new contribution to the field.”
A weight loss study has also suggested the 10,000 steps rule as the gold standard.
They have also found that people would see the physical and mental health benefits of walking even by just doing 7,500 steps.
A different study by Spartano & colleagues on the effect of light physical activity on reducing brain aging suggest 10,000 steps each day:
“Achieving 10 000 or more steps per day was associated with higher brain volume compared with those achieving fewer than 5000 steps per day.”
The study was published in JAMA Network Open (Paluch et al., 2021).
In the study healthy people had their hands and wrists immobilised in a cast for four weeks.
The beneficial effects of exercise on the hippocampus, an area critical for memory and learning.
The beneficial effects of exercise on the hippocampus, an area critical for memory and learning.
Being physically active is essential for maintaining mental health and what is more, improves hippocampal function related to learning and memory, a study shows.
Exercise stimulates the production of chemical signals important for neuronal development in the hippocampus.
Mr Ki Yun Lee, the study’s first author, said:
“The hippocampus is a crucial area for learning and memory, and therefore cognitive health.”
During physical activity our muscle fibres contract and by doing so certain chemical compounds are released into the blood vessels and circulated around the body, including the hippocampus.
Swimming, cycling, bicep curls, push-ups, sit-ups, squats, are examples of sporting activities that involve muscle contraction (tightening, lengthening, or shortening of muscles).
The researchers wanted to find out how muscle signals are converted and used for neuronal activity and development in the hippocampus.
Knowing the beneficial effects of exercise on the hippocampus could lead to specific exercise-based interventions to overcome neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
For this study, samples containing mice muscle cells were obtained and kept in the lab in cell culture plates.
When the muscle cells were grown, they began to contract and release chemical signals in the plates.
Then those cultures containing chemical signals were added to another culture which held hippocampal neurons and astrocytes (supportive cells).
The team also used various techniques to track neurons’ electrical activity and so they were able to examine how the hippocampal cells were influenced by the chemical signals.
They found that hippocampal neurons, when receiving the chemical signals from contracting muscles, started to produce larger and more frequent electrical signals.
These suggest that neurons of the hippocampus were flourishing and healthy while at the same time developing a powerful network.
Furthermore, they looked at the mediating role of astrocytes in order to understand what biological mechanism links exercise to brain health.
Mr Lee said:
“Astrocytes are the first responders in the brain before the compounds from muscles reach the neurons.”
When astrocytes were removed from the cell cultures, the team saw that hippocampal neurons began to generate more electrical signals.
This indicates an absence of astrocytes, Mr Lee said:
“Astrocytes play a critical role in mediating the effects of exercise.
By regulating neuronal activity and preventing hyperexcitability of neurons, astrocytes contribute to the balance necessary for optimal brain function.”
He added:
“Ultimately, our research may contribute to the development of more effective exercise regimens for cognitive disorders such as ‘s disease.”
The study was published in the journal Neuroscience (Lee et al., 2023).
Join the free PsyBlog mailing list. No spam, ever.
