Step up your daily exercise routine to stave off 5 chronic diseases
Exercising at five to six times the minimum recommended level lowers your risk of breast and bowel cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, new analysis of 35 years of research shows
Daily activity levels several times higher than the commonly recommended minimum are strongly associated with lower risk of five common chronic diseases – breast and bowel cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, finds a new study in The BMJ. A team of researchers based in the US and Australia came to this conclusion after analysing results of 174 studies published between 1980 and 2016 examining the associations between total physical activity and at least one of the five chronic diseases.
Most health gains occurred at a total activity level of 3,000-4,000 metabolic equivalent (MET) minutes a week, with diminishing returns at higher activity levels. A person can achieve 3,000 MET minutes a week by incorporating different types of physical activity into their daily routine – for example, climbing stairs for 10 minutes, vacuuming for 15 minutes, gardening for 20 minutes, running for 20 minutes, and walking or cycling for 25 minutes. That’s several times more than current World Health Organisation recommendations of a minimum total physical activity level of 600 MET minutes a week.
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