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Following a sedentary lifestyle is more dangerous
for your health than smoking, says a recent study
reported in the South China Morning Post, and
carried out by the University of Hong Kong and the
Department of Health. In the study, researchers
looked at the level of physical activity in people
who died and were able to correlate their level of
physical activity with their risk of dying.
The results are fascinating: 20% of all deaths of
people 35 and older were attributed to a lack of
physical activity. That's more deaths than can be
attributed to smoking. Looking at specific diseases,
the risk of dying from cancer increased 45% for men
and 28% for women due to lack of physical activity.
The risk of dying from respiratory ailments was 92%
higher for men and 75% higher for women. The risk of
dying from heart disease was 52% higher for men and
28% higher for women, all due to a lack of physical
activity. It turns out that being a couch potato can
kill you, literally.
This is really no surprise to naturopathic
physicians, holistic healers, holistic
nutritionists, and other people in the natural
healing fields: physical activity is absolutely
critical for the health of the human body. In fact,
it's fair to say that the human body was designed to
be used. There are a lot of misleading metaphors in
modern medicine that compare the human body to an
automobile. These metaphors propose the idea that
the body wears out with use. People say their knee
joints have worn out, for example, and that's why
they have knee pain. But I have news for you on
this: joints don't "wear out" like car parts, and
the human body actually gets healthier with use —
unlike your automobile.
In fact, the more you use your body, the healthier
it gets — up to a point of course; you don't want to
overexert yourself and cause injury, but very few
people run the risk of actually doing too much
exercise in modern society. Sadly, in today's world,
a lot of people just sit around. They spend endless
hour watching TV, and they hold jobs that require
them to sit behind a desk for 8 or 9 or 10 hours a
day engaging in virtually no physical movement at
all. As a result, they are being diagnosed with
chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease,
diabetes, and respiratory ailments — all related to
a lack of regular physical exercise.
These diseases can be prevented and even frequently
reversed through physical exercise alone. Looking at
why physical exercise makes individuals so much
healthier gives us an interesting perspective on how
the human body really works. The human body is
designed to move around. And by moving the muscles,
ligaments and limbs, you actually massage the
tissues and organs of the body, bringing them oxygen
and enhancing their flexibility. You also move lymph
fluid around the body, and lymph must be moved
through physical activity alone since there is no
"lymph heart" to circulate lymph fluid like there is
with your cardiovascular system.
(In other words, your heart pumps your blood even if
you're sitting in a chair. But there's nothing to
pump your lymph fluid other than sloshing your body
around through regular movement.)
Physical activity gets everything moving in your
body — the blood, the oxygen, the nutrients, the
cellular respiration, the nervous system, and so on.
Sweating is good for you as well — you sweat out
toxins and replace the lost liquids by drinking
fresh, clean water. Physical exercise, if done
outside, also exposes you to the healing effects of
natural sunlight, an essential nutrient for the
human body that is deficient in most people.
Getting enough sunlight on your skin can prevent and
even reverse an astounding number of chronic
diseases such as breast cancer, prostate cancer,
osteoporosis and more.
If you put all of this together, you see that
physical exercise is extremely beneficial to the
human body, and in fact the body won't live nearly
as long without it. Studies also show that it
doesn't take an enormous amount of physical exercise
to achieve health-enhancing results. A mere 30
minutes a day of walking, swimming, jogging, cycling
or other cardiovascular exercise can have astounding
positive health effects.
But exercising seems to remain a low priority for
many. People ask, "How can I avoid all of these
diseases without actually having to do the
exercises? Is there a way that I can get the
benefits of physical exercise without having to move
my body?" And the answer to these questions is
simply, no. You have to actually do exercise if you
want to get the benefits from it. No one can do it
for you, no prescription drugs can give you the same
effects, no surgical procedure can create the health
that your body would create on its own when you
engage in regular physical exercise. This is
something you must pursue on your own if you desire
to experience the positive health results it offers.
Mike Adams, "The Health Ranger," is chief
contributor and editor of the NewsTarget Network, a
leading independent news source for natural health,
nutrition, medicine and other wellness topics.
NewsTarget and Webseed.com are dependable
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