Increasing life expectancy with regular exercise and the importance of personalised training

Introduction

Being physically inactive can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, bone and joint disorders (osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis), cancer (colon and breast) and depression ^[1].

In physically active persons, all-cause mortality is decreased by about 30% to 35% compared to those who are physically inactive.

In addition, a plethora of studies has shown that regular physical activity increases life expectancy ^[2].

To achieve longevity benefits, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and different guidelines recommend moderate physical activity of 150 min per week or 75 min of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, or comparable combination of both ^[3].

But, do these recommendations apply  to everyone?

Of course not.

These are just general recommendations with proven health benefits.

One rule never fits all, as each individual is unique in its own way.

Therefore, if you want to achieve personal exercise goals which depend on your health status,training history, current or past injuries, schedule, and current level of fitness, you should be supervised by a professional personal trainer who will design a specific personalised exercise program.

A professional personal trainer will evaluate which type of exercise, its intensity, frequency and duration is the best for you.

Therefore, similarly as you have your own dentist or psychiatrist, it is recommendable to also have your own elite personal trainer.

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Why humans need regular physical activity?

It has been suggested that endurance running played an important role in the evolution of Homo sapiens, which allowed our distant ancestors to efficiently hunt and obtain adequate amounts of high quality food or to escape from enemy attack.

Based on this hypothesis, early human hunters with extreme endurance capacity were undoubtedly highly successful.

It can be proposed that on the basis of Darwin’s fitness theory, greater capacity at endurance running improved the survival capacity of specific early humans.

It appears that endurance capacity or at least one of the most significant markers of aerobic endurance, maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), even today is important for survival ^[4].

Physiological benefits of exercise: What happens inside our bodies during exercise?

Physical activity may increase blood flow to working skeletal muscle by up to 100-fold, and more moderately to the brain, whereas blood and oxygen supply decrease to the liver, kidney and testes.

Despite the variability in oxygen, blood, and energy supply to these organs, all of them benefit from regular exercise ^[5].

Increased levels of already mentioned VO2max that can be obtained during regular exercise not only decrease the incidence of mortality and oxidative stress but also up-regulate molecular pathways, which further enhance protection against reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radicals.

On the other hand, ageing is associated with decreases in VO2max and loss of organ function as well as increases in ROS production and oxidative stress ^[5].

Accumulating evidence suggests that regular and supervised exercise lessens the deleterious effects of ageing.

It appears that physical activity increases mitochondrial production, dynamics and activity, in all the measured organs.

Recent findings imply that exercise also attenuates the age-related deterioration in the cellular housekeeping system, which beneficially influences multiple organ functions ^[5].

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How long, frequent and intense should one exercise?

Studies have found following:

• Seventy-five minutes of brisk walking per week is associated with a 1.8-year gain in life expectancy after age 40 compared to a sedentary lifestyle ^[6].
• Brisk walking for only 10 min/day on most days of the week reduces coronary heart disease risk by 20–50% ^[7].
• A single bout of high-intensity exercise per week reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease death by 39% in men and 51% in women ^[8].
• Running only 5–10 min per day or less than 60 min per week was shown to decrease cardiovascular disease mortality by 38% and all-cause mortality by 28% ^[9].
• Light physical activity, such as brisk walking, is the best option for the sedentary population who are at risk of falls and joint injuries ^[10].
• Vigorous physical activity is more effective at lowering blood pressure and improving lipid and anti-inflammatory profiles in diabetes mellitus compared to moderate exercise ^[11].
• Resistance training reduces bone loss, enhances muscle mass, and is recommended as a part of supervised exercise program for osteoporosis prevention and treatment ^[12].

Reducing the risk of chronic diseases with regular, adequate and supervised exercise

Regular, adequate and supervised exercise by a professional trainer can reduce the risk and improve the outcomes of various chronic disease such as:

1. Metabolic syndrome

Metabolic syndrome is defined as a cluster of conditions that include increased blood pressure and blood sugar levels, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal triglyceride or cholesterol levels that when occur together increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes ^[13].

Physical inactivity is considered as a primary cause of this condition.

Therefore, regular, adequate and monitored physical activity is primary prevention for every major metabolic syndrome risk factor ^[14].

2. Obesity

Physical inactivity is also one of the major causes of visceral adipose tissue and whole-body obesities.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) primary prevention of obesity with appropriate exercise may reduce risks for:

• Coronary heart disease
• Hypertension
• Type 2 diabetes mellitus
• Dyslipidemia
• Stroke
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• Gallbladder diseases
• Sleep apnea and respiratory problems
• Osteoarthritis
• Gynecological problems (abnormal menses, infertility)
• Endometrial, postmenopausal, breast, prostate, and other cancers and
• Premature death ^[15].

Supervised aerobic exercise with professional interventions has positive impact on lipid outcomes in obese adults for every additional minute of such exercise.

Greater improvement can be observed through utilising low-intensity exercise ^[16].

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3. Insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus

Physical inactivity may provoke insulin resistance in skeletal muscle, and thus whole-body leading to type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Findings have showed that high levels of daily physical activity may prevent insulin resistance ^[17].

4. Cardiovascular diseases

Supervised exercise programs including cardiac rehabilitation in patients who have undergone percutaneous coronary interventions, heart valve surgery, who have stable chronic heart failure, have peripheral arterial disease, or are transplantation candidates or recipients, result in significant short and long-term cardiovascular disease benefit ^[18].

5. Osteoporosis

Physical inactivity may lead to a loss of gravitational and muscle contraction that can further induce catabolism (resorption) of bones by promoting osteoclasts with simultaneous suppression of both bone formation and osteoblast production ^[19].

A study in early postmenopausal women showed that 1 year of supervised circuit training which included lower body impact and upper body resistance training increased bone mass at the posterior region of the proximal tibia.

Moreover, circuit training in combination with hormone replacement therapy also improved bone mass at the anteroposterior region ^[20].

6. Rheumatoid arthritis

There are suggestions that regular and proper physical activity may counter increase in inflammation that occurs during the progression of rheumatoid arthritis [19].

A study on 30 female Chinese patients with rheumatoid arthritis found that aerobic exercise programme supervised by a physical therapist induced significant improvement in the aerobic capacity and was for about 20% more effective than home-unsupervised aerobic exercise ^[21].

7. Cancer

Physical inactivity and sedentary life may increase the prevalence of some site-specific (breast, endometrial and colon cancers), but, to date, not all cancer types.

For example, one study showed that patients with lowest physical activity had 40% increased prevalence of colon cancer compared to the highest activity group^[19].

Another analysis showed that supervised aerobic exercise is more effective than conventional care in improving cancer related fatigue among breast cancer patients.

Similar effects were also found for resistance training ^[22].

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8. Depression

According to some estimations, physical inactivity causes up to 1/3^rd of depression.

Physical activity can primarily prevent 20–30% of depression ^[19].

Conclusion

Proper and supervised exercise prescription may result in improved  physical performance,body composition and overall better health.

A supervised setting can provide not only motivation for an individual to better and safer perform exercise, but might also allow for an educational component.

Hippocrates was probably right when he 2400 years ago stated:

“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health” ^[3].

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References:

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3. Maslov PZ, Schulman A, Lavie CJ, Narula J. Personalized exercise dose prescription. European Heart Journal. 2018;39(25):2346–2355
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15. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Overweight and Obesity. http://wwwcdcgov/obesity/causes/healthhtml.
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22. Meneses-Echávez JF, González-Jiménez E, Ramírez-Vélez R. Effects of supervised exercise on cancer-related fatigue in breast cancer survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Cancer. 2015;15:77.