The Real Importance of Activity to Health

Even for the most die-hard couch potato, it is tough to ignore the volume of information confirming the importance of regular activity to health. Everyone knows that they should exercise, but other than the modest acknowledging that it will help you look better and somehow keep you healthy, my experience has shown that for the average person, the understanding of the correlation between activity and heath does not go much further.

During my 47 years in practice, it has become increasingly evident that for many patients the more they are exposed to the benefits of regular physical activity, the harder they work to avoid it. I swear that when you suggest exercise to some people, the look you get back is akin to asking them to pick up a snake.

I firmly believe that if we understood the more comprehensive benefits associated with regular activity, there would be far less resistance to the process. Research has demonstrated conclusively that our current sedentary lifestyles, and especially prolonged periods of sitting, are serious contributors to most of the diseases associated with ageing. This is not conjecture and is reflected in ever-escalating health service costs associated with lifestyle related disease. If you want to live, you have got to move.

For most of our evolution, we humans survived as nomads, either chasing food or running away from something that saw us as food. As such, efficient movement was a critical component of survival and became the defining stimulus for how the human frame took its shape. The single most important vehicle for this, being the musculoskeletal system, which is what generates the movement needed for survival. Essentially, the purpose of all our other organs and related systems is to support our ability to think, while moving with precise efficiency and endurance. Their function is to nurture the physical body by providing fuel and eliminating waste associated with the biomechanical and physiological functions necessary to allow movement to occur. The brain and nervous system serve as the command centre and communications network, directing the acts of physical activity. This spectacular body of ours has been honed over generations to be the consummate self-directed and self-servicing machine and during waking hours, this magnificent instrument is designed for almost constant use. In a paper published in the British Medical Journal entitled “How Should We Define Health?”Machteld Huber and colleagues propose a new definition of health as “The ability to adapt and self-manage.”Interestingly, the history of human development shows this has always been the hallmark of our evolution as a species. Both adaptation and self-management reflect the human evolutionary experience. Without mastering these we would have been extinct long ago. Distil this down further and what you really get is efficient and purpose-driven movement away from danger and towards that which sustains life and enhances vitality.

Research is now demonstrating that even daily periods of exercise are not enough to keep us healthy. We need a lifestyle that generates consistent periods of purposeful movement throughout the day. This is in keeping with our evolutionary development and what the Un-Diet Diet program I created provides. It is here, contained in purposeful movement that the rubber hits the road, and for many readers, accepting this truth may require an attitudinal shift. We must accept and embrace the physicality of life and the need to be consistently active throughout our day. The research shows that failure to do so may be like signing your own death warrant. The human body has been perfectly crafted over time to sustain a life of consistent movement punctuated by brief periods of rest during the waking hours. This is in many ways the exact opposite of much of the 21st century lifestyle which in many ways is one of prolonged periods of rest punctuated by brief periods of activity. In fact, from a purely anatomical perspective, the human skeleton was never designed to sit for extended periods. As research showed, prolonged periods of sitting are responsible for the recent explosions of many lifestyle-related diseases associated with ageing.

In her book Sitting Kills, Moving Heals, Dr. Joan Vernikos, former director of NASA’s Life Science Division, found that even regular daily exercise does not counteract the effects of prolonged sitting. Her landmark research with astronauts has gone a long way towards clarifying the mystery of why periodic activity throughout the day is critical to health and, even more importantly, provides us with a simple regimen that could go a long way in counteracting the consequences of inactivity.

To determine why a single period of daily exercise fails to compensate for the negative effects of prolonged sitting, her research focused on isolating what type of movement is withdrawn by periods of prolonged sitting. What she discovered was as revolutionary as it was counterintuitive. Although periods of prolonged movement and activity certainly demonstrated benefits, many key health gains were discovered simply in the act of standing up. Aside from discovering that just the act of lifting the body up, as a single movement, is effective for counteracting the ill effects of sitting, the more salient key is in found in how many times we stand up!

Dr. Vernikos’ research demonstrated that it’s the activity associated with a change in posture as applied to gravity that has the most beneficial impact on our health. Put another way, counteracting the ill effects of sitting is found in the simple act of repeatedly interrupting your sitting. She notes that the key is frequent intermittent interactions with gravity. Her research shows that “Standing up thirty-five times at once will provide only a small percent of the benefit of standing up once every twenty minutes.” This mechanism makes sense as the body prepares for movement by stimulating the metabolic processes necessary to support the imminent muscular activity involved in locomotion.

I don’t want to bore you with the science but understanding how the body functions to metabolize fats provides critical insight into why movement is I believe more important than diet. Purposeful movement stimulates a cascade of biological processes which are critical to health. For example, lipoprotein lipase, which is responsible for breaking down triglycerides, is dramatically reduced during periods of inactivity. Science has found this reduction in metabolic function to be a massive contributor to the development of obesity. Interestingly, this same enzyme attaches to fat in your bloodstream and transports it into your muscles to be used as fuel, increases substantially with activity. The most effective activity is, you guessed it, standing up from a seated position. Essentially, simply by standing up you are actively helping your body to burn calories for fuel. This process is further accelerated by sustaining movement over time, and you will be surprised at just how little is required to demonstrate positive results.

The links between movement, health and longevity are irrefutable, but, sadly, most health professionals ignore their importance. It is like having the answer to a problem perched right in front of us, but because it is not the solution that suits our purposes, we continue to search for a more convenient answer. In an article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by Warburton, Nicol and Bredin, the authors conclude: “We confirm that there is irrefutable evidence of the effectiveness of regular physical activity in the primary and secondary prevention of several chronic diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, hypertension, obesity, depression, and osteoporosis) and premature death.”

Let’s change gears by looking at the impact of movement on the mind. Consistent movement helps us think better, ward off dementia and stay intellectually sharp as we age. The first century Roman poet Juvenal understood the key to health when he wrote, “Menssana in corpore sano”: “A sound mind in a sound body.” We have all heard that saying, but what does it really mean? The relationship between movement and health is well-documented, but the surprising impact upon the quality of brain function is a relatively new discovery. In their article “The Positive Impact of Physical Activity on Cognition During Adulthood: A Review of Underlying Mechanisms, Evidence and Recommendations,” authors JJ Ratey and LE Loehr note that, “Brain plasticity and cognitive function are significantly improved by physical activity.” More simply, the quality of the thinking process itself is impacted by movement

History repeatedly demonstrates that the resolve to today’s problem is often buried in the activities, circumstances and events that preceded it. The same holds true for our health. We are and always will be creatures of movement. Human beings are magnificently engineered thinking machines that have evolved over millions of years, with one overarching purpose: to move. All facets of our existence and evolution have depended upon our ability to creatively fabricate game plans for survival and then successfully execute them. This has been predicated upon the efficiency of our movement. No movement, no survival! Imagine if purposeful movement became a prescription medication with a fee attached to it. It would the single most prescribed remedy by health care providers across the board, with the worst side effect being the need to purchase better footwear.

In summary, if you want to get or remain healthy, move, and do so with consistency, it is good for your whole body. There is not one single physiological function that is not positively impacted by consistent and purposeful movement. If you are interested in finding more information on the “Five-ten-fifteen” movement program, it is available in my book “Un-Diet Diet.”

Next month we are going to examine “How Important is What I Eat to my Health and Longevity?”

About the Author: Dr. POOLEY has been in practice for over 46 years, is a former champion bodybuilder and author of the book the Un-Diet Diet.