Exercise may be the closest thing to a wonder drug

There is no escaping the 'dread' of physical exercise --if you want to be healthy, literally

For all the lazy and work-shy people who prefer more 'convenient ways' to stay fit and healthy, unfortunately there is no way out!

Of all the things experts can recommend for good health, few provide as much benefit as the 'much dreaded' physical exercise.

"After I wrote last year that diet, not exercise, was the key to weight loss, I was troubled by how some readers took this to mean that exercise therefore had no value," said Aaron E Carroll, professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine.

A 2015 report by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges termed exercise as a "miracle cure". This wasn’t a conclusion based simply on some random studies. A large scale analysis examined the effect of exercise therapy on outcomes in people with chronic diseases.

Findings

First, for those with musculoskeletal diseases, researchers examined the effect of exercise on pain and function of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee alone. Exercise improved those outcomes.

The studies showed that exercise therapy increased aerobic capacity and muscle strength in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Separate studies proved its benefits in other musculoskeletal conditions, like ankylosing spondylitis, and even some types of back pain.

Second, for people who had suffered a heart attack, exercise therapy reduced all causes of mortality by 27 per cent and cardiac mortality by 31 per cent. Exercise has also been shown to lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension, and improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Third, for people with diabetes, exercise led them to have lower HbA1c values, which is the marker of blood sugar control, low enough to probably reduce the risk of complications from the disease.

Furthermore, other trials showed that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease could walk farther and function better if they exercised.

Multiple studies have found that exercise improves physical function and health-related quality of life in people who have Parkinson’s disease. They showed that exercise improves muscle power and mobility-related activities in people with multiple sclerosis. It also appeared to improve those patients’ moods.

The overall results showed that exercise most likely improved the symptoms of depression. Some others showed that it improved symptoms in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. In trials, exercise even lessened fatigue in patients who were undergoing therapy for cancer. Studies of older, hospitalised patients showed they were more likely to be discharged to go home, and to spend less time in the hospital

Bucking up
Given the encouraging findings by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, it appears there is no escaping the 'dreaded' physical exercise --if you want to be healthy, literally.

The recommendations for exercise are 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity for adults, or about 30 minutes each weekday.

Moderate intensity is probably much less than you think. Walking briskly, at 3 to 4 miles per hour or so, would suffice. So does bicycling slower than 10 miles an hour. Anything that gets the heart rate somewhere between 110 and 140 beats per minute should suffice.

After the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges published its report, an editorial in the BMJ countered that "exercise wasn’t just a 'miracle cure', but that it was 'the best buy for public health'," thus stressing the importance of physical activity.

This article originally appeared on the New York Times.