Avoid Chronic Disease

Walking is the miracle exercise that’s better medicine than most miracle drugs.

Sure, running and bicycling may burn more calories, but walking is miles better – for lots of reasons. One though, outweighs them all … more people stick with walking than any other type of exercise. Walking strengthens and tones muscles. And almost everyone can walk. All these uncover why walking is the #1 health initiative prescribed by medical professionals.

And like a good medicine, walking helps people regain health by reducing health problems associated with being overweight or out of shape. It’s simply amazing what walking can do for a person’s health! But don’t take our word for it. Read what medical studies say.

Diabetes

Newcastle University Study published in Diabetes Care
www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/item/?ref=1217239784

People often find the thought of going to the gym quite daunting, but what we’ve found is that nearly everyone with diabetes is able to become more active through walking. In our study many people got off the bus a few stops earlier and some took a walk at lunchtime.

“What is exciting about this study is that it provides an immediate way to help control diabetes without any additional drugs. By building physical activity into everyday life the difficulty of making time to go out just for exercise is avoided. It is an important and simple health message – walking 45 minutes extra a day helps diabetes.

Dr. Michael Trenell

University of Missouri-Columbia Meta-analysis
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070614105308.htm

In studies that focused on exercise only, blood glucose improved twice as much as in studies that focused on exercise, diet and medication adherence … The censuses among these studies could mean that it is easier for people to focus on one thing at a time. It is easy for people to get overwhelmed when asked to make too many changes.

Vicki Conn, Associate Dean of Research,
MU Sinclair School of Nursing, University of Missouri-Columbia

The meta-analysis considered data from 10,455 subjects in 103 research reports. No previous meta-analysis has compared exercise-only interventions with interventions including multiple diabetes self-management behaviors.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Trial
http://win.niddk.nih.gov/notes/winter01notes/winter01.htm

…Eating well and getting active were found to be more effective than taking diabetes medication.

University of Michigan Health System and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System Trial
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/89283.php

The use of a pedometer and a Web site that tracked physical activity levels proved to be powerful motivators for people with diabetes…

…the group that had every step counted was more inclined to enjoy the overall program and was more likely to stick with it.

Coronary Heart Disease

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) kills almost a million people a year and is the single leading cause of death in the United States. Estimated costs for 2008 stand at $35 billion.

You’re well aware that risk factors include inactivity and obesity.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
http://americanheart.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=631

Twenty-one thousand U.S. male physicians were studied over a 20 year period. In comparison with physicians who were both lean and active, the risk of heart failure increased:

• 19% in the lean and inactive;
• 49% for overweight and active physicians;
• 78% for both overweight and inactive;
• 168% for obese and active; and
• 293% for those both obese and inactive.

  Any amount of vigorous physical activity that caused sweating, ranging from a low of one to three times a month to a high of five to seven times a week, was associated with an 18 percent reduction in heart failure risk, after adjusting for other known causes of heart failure.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11255420

…even light-to-moderate activity is associated with lower CHD rates in women. At least 1 hour of walking per week predicted lower risk.

Colon Cancer

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL17245820080121

Women who walked for 1 to 1.9 hours each week were 31% less likely to develop colon cancer than those who didn’t walk at all…. And women who exercised at moderate or vigorous intensity for more than 4 hours weekly were at 44% lower risk of colon cancer than those who exercised for less than an hour a week.

Research showing that exercise reduces colon cancer risk has been ‘consistent and convincing,’

Breast Cancer

Siteman Cancer Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/574528

The most active women, who showed a 23% reduction in the risk for premenopausal breast cancer, reported exercise that was equivalent to running 3.25 hours a week or walking 13 hours a week.

…a 39% lower breast cancer risk for total lifetime physical activity in the most active women compared with the least active women.

It did not seem to matter much what the activity was; the differences between strenuous, moderate, and walking activities were not statistically significant. ‘You don’t have to be a marathon runner to get the risk-reducing effects of exercise,’ Dr. Colditz commented.

Alberta Cancer Board, Calgary, Canada & School of Population Health, University of Melbourne in Australia
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/574528

Women who had undertaken a lot of physical activity throughout their life had the lowest risk for breast cancer, the researchers found. All types of activity reduced the risk for breast cancer, but recreational activity had a greater effect than occupational or household activity.

Dementia

Two studies in the Sept. 22, 2004 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association have added to evidence that walking and other physical activity keeps a person’s brain functioning better with aging and may reduce the risks of dementia.

Harvard School of Public Health, Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/292/12/1454

The Nurses’ Health Study assessed 18,766 US women aged 70 to 81 years over a 20 year period. They found that those who walked at least 1.5 miles a week had better thinking ability.

Long-term regular physical activity, including walking, is associated with significantly better cognitive function and less cognitive decline in older women.

Using Pedometers As A Tool To Get Active

University of Michigan Health System
www.ur.umich.edu/0708/Jan21_08/13.shtml

People who participate in a pedometer-based walking program can be expected to lose a modest amount of weight even without changing their diet, with more weight loss the longer they stick with the program, according to a U-M Health System analysis of nine studies.

The increase in physical activity can be expected to result in health benefits that are independent of weight loss,” Richardson says. “Increasing physical activity reduces the risk of cardiovascular problems, lowers blood pressure and helps dieters maintain lean muscle tissue when they are dieting.

Dr. Caroline Richardson,
Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine

Over a year, the analysis suggests, participants in pedometer-based walking programs can expect to lose about 5 pounds. While that may only mean a 2-3-percent reduction in body weight for an overweight person, Richardson notes, the program still can be beneficial. A quicker way to see results, and possibly to encourage people to adhere to the program longer, would be to add a dietary program to the walking plan….

University of Michigan Health System & VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System
www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2007/pedometer.htm

The use of a pedometer and a Web site that tracked physical activity levels proved to be powerful motivators for people with diabetes….

Stanford University School of Medicine
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071120195723.htm

…the use of a pedometer is associated with significant increases in physical activity and weight loss and improvements in blood pressure.

‘Much to my surprise, these little devices were shown to increase physical activity by just over 2,000 steps, or about 1 mile of walking per day,’ said the study’s lead author, Dena Bravata, MD, MS, a senior research scientist in medicine.

‘Just over 2,100 steps might not sound that much, but it equates to a 27 percent increase in physical activity - which is really astounding,’ said Bravata.

One person who wasn’t surprised by the finding is James Hill, PhD, an obesity expert at University of Colorado. “It fits with everything we’ve seen; we can get pretty amazing increased physical activity by using pedometers,” said Hill, who co-founded America on the Move, a national initiative that encourages people to add 2,000 steps a day to what they already are doing.

When looking beyond increased steps, Bravata’s team found that pedometer users lost weight: their body mass index - a measure of body fat based on height and weight - decreased by 0.4. (For a 5-foot-6 person who initially weighed 195 pounds, that would be 2.5 pounds lost.)

They also saw their systolic blood pressure (the upper number of the two values) fall by 3.8 mm Hg. Bravata said she considered this decrease quite significant, especially because the baseline blood pressure of the pedometer users was not that high. She noted that a reduction of 2 mm Hg is associated with a 10 percent reduction in stroke mortality and a 7 percent reduction in death from vascular causes.

What all these studies show is: You'll feel healthier and stronger by walking 10,000 steps a day and eating the foods that are right for you!