Life lies in exercise. Exercise has a powerful and irreplaceable and important role in promoting health. I believe no one doubts about this. As long as you move, it is good for your health, but the question is whether exercise is more beneficial or more at risk of sports injury when the amount of exercise increases further? Many people still have doubts about this question. A new study from Oxford University gives the ultimate answer to this question. The answer is that the more exercise, the greater the health benefits.
I. How do top universities carry out this large-scale crowd research?
Recently, a research team from Oxford University in the United Kingdom published a study on PLOS Medicine. After more than 5 years of tracking 90,000 people per capita, it finally concluded that exercise can significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and the most active people. The risk of cardiovascular disease is the lowest, and there is no upper limit for exercise, that is to say, increasing the amount of exercise can bring more health benefits. That is, compared with the risk of sports injury caused by increasing the amount of exercise, the health benefits of increasing the amount of exercise are much greater.
This is a cohort study. First of all, I will explain to you what “queue research” is. Cohort research is a classic and most credible research method of epidemiology. It divides people into exposed groups or non-exposed groups according to whether they are exposed to certain suspicious factors. Without any intervention, these two groups are tracked for many years to observe the outcome events of the members of each group. It is often the occurrence of disease or death), so as to finalise the relationship between exposure factors and disease. If the above explanation is very obscure and professional, and you still can’t understand it, let’s give an example and you will understand it at once.
The most classic case of cohort study is the determination of the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. Early scientists did such a very simple-designed study. They divided the population into smokers and non-smokers. They did not intervene in any way, but only tracked and observed their health. As a result, after several years, it was found that the incidence of lung cancer among smokers was much higher than that of non-smokers, which proved Smoking is an important risk factor for lung cancer. The smokers here are the exposure group, while the non-smokers are the non-exposed groups. At this time, exposure is a hazard. Whether this hazard causes lung cancer is clear through the queue. Of course, exposure can also be a positive health behaviour, such as exercise or reasonable diet. At this time, exposure is a protective factor. Exposure does not matter whether it is good or bad. It mainly depends on the relationship between exposure and disease. If exposure leads to disease, then this exposure is a risk factor, and if exposure reduces the occurrence of disease, then exposure is a protective factor.
The data of this study at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom comes from a study called the “British Biobank Queue”. This study does this: a total of 90,000 people have joined the queue. Researchers have distributed scientific research-grade wearable devices to these 90,000 people to record their activities for a week, assuming that people’s activities are relatively stable. Then the amount of activity recorded by the wearable device can approximately represent the subject’s movement level. At the same time, the relatively objective movement data of the subject can be obtained by using the wearable device to avoid the memory bias or inaccurate recording caused by the questionnaire.
Subjects wear scientific-grade wearable devices on their waists to record their exercise. At first, a total of 90,000 subjects did not have cardiovascular diseases, and the researchers did not interfere with their living behaviour habits. After 440,000 people, basically five years of per capita observation, 3,617 cases of cardiovascular diseases occurred in the initial cohort of 90,000 people (3,305 non-fatal and 31 2 fatalities), at this time, researchers can analyse whether there is a difference in the amount of exercise between people with cardiovascular disease and those who do not have cardiovascular disease, which can prove that exercise can significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Researchers found that there is a linear negative correlation between the level of physical activity and the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. Whether it is moderate intensity, high intensity activity or total activity, it can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. And with the increasing level of activity, the probability of cardiovascular disease is decreasing. The more exercise, the lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.
II. It is very clear that the more you exercise, the greater the health benefits.
The World Health Organisation, the American Sports Medical Association, including China’s exercise guidelines, without exception, agree that 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week, or 75 minutes of high-intensity aerobic exercise is the minimum amount of exercise to maintain health. At the same time, the more exercise, the greater the health benefits. Therefore, people should be encouraged to do It is possible to further increase the amount of exercise on the basis of reaching the minimum exercise standard, in order to bring more health benefits.
The World Health Organisation updated some important views on exercise and health in the latest “Guidelines for Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour” published a year ago. This guide basically inherits our previous basic understanding of exercise, sedentary and health. For example, exercise can significantly improve health, and people should achieve At least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, or 75 minutes of high-intensity exercise, is the minimum amount of exercise. At the same time, this report puts forward new important points:
People should not only meet the minimum amount of exercise, but also strive to achieve the best amount of exercise. The standard of the best amount of exercise is 300 minutes of medium-intensity exercise or 150 minutes of high-intensity exercise per week. Previously, although the minimum amount of exercise was clear, there has been no corresponding authoritative statement of the optimal amount of exercise. This is For the first time, the international authority put forward the concept of the best amount of exercise, that is to say, people should not only be satisfied with reaching the minimum amount of exercise, but should try to get close to or achieve the best amount of exercise. However, at the same time, the best amount of exercise is not equal to the maximum amount of exercise. There is no upper limit Exceed the optimal amount of exercise.
III. The benefits of exercise far outweigh the risk of sports injury.
Exercise brings people all-round health benefits, and the benefits of exercise far outweigh the risk of injury caused by exercise. Even if the amount of exercise increases, the benefits of exercise still outweigh the risk of injury. The more you exercise, the more objectively the risk of injury will increase, which is undeniable, but there are many reasons for sports injuries. Increasing the amount of exercise is only one of the reasons. There are many reasons that cause sports injuries. It is against the fact and science that all injuries are attributed to the increase in the amount of exercise. The key is that we should increase the amount of exercise scientifically and step by step. For example, the weekly running volume growth is generally within 10-20%, and more than 50-60% is very dangerous.
IV. The more you exercise, the greater the health benefits, but the increase in income is decreasing.
As mentioned above, the more you exercise, the greater the health benefits, but there is no linear relationship between exercise and health benefits. With the further increase of exercise, the health benefits also increase, but the increase of health benefits may decrease. In other words, let people who lack exercise start exercising, and the health benefits they get. The benefits are greater than those who have developed exercise habits to further increase the amount of exercise. Therefore, a country’s national fitness policy should first consider how to start exercising for those who never exercise. Therefore, they can get the greatest health benefits from exercise, that is, even if people who lack exercise start to do a little, it is also of great significance to improve the health level of the whole society.
V. The two main problems that endanger the health of Chinese people can be significantly improved through exercise.
According to the “Report on Nutrition and Chronic Diseases of Chinese Residents (2020)” just released, deaths caused by chronic diseases accounted for 88.5% of the total deaths in China in 2019, and the proportion of deaths from central cerebrovascular diseases, cancers and chronic respiratory diseases was 80.7%. It can be said that chronic diseases are the main threat to the health of Chinese residents, and exercise has a significant preventive effect on most chronic diseases.
According to the latest edition of the China Cardiovascular Health and Disease Report, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in China is on the stage of continuous rise, and it is estimated that the number of patients has reached 330 million; the mortality rate of cardiovascular disease is still the first, with 2 deaths from cardiovascular disease every 5 deaths. The greatest value of endurance exercise is to improve cardiovascular health and reduce the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, endurance and heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure and body temperature are called the fifth major vital signs, which shows the importance of exercise.
The benefits of exercise for cardiovascular
At the same time, according to the latest global cancer burden data in 2020 released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organisation, there were 4.57 million new cancer cases and 3 million cancer deaths in China in 2020, which shows that the cancer burden is very heavy. Before the age of 75, one in four Chinese people would get cancer, and no one dared to say that they would not be recruited.
Exercise can significantly reduce the incidence of 13 of cancers, namely oesophageal cancer (42%), liver cancer (27%), lung cancer (23%), kidney cancer (23%), stomach cancer (22%), endometrial cancer (21%), leukaemia (20%), myeloma (17%), and colon cancer (1 6%), brain cancer (13%), rectal cancer (13%), bladder cancer (13%), breast cancer (10%). That is to say, 8 of the top 10 cancers in China can get significant benefits from exercise. Exercise can reduce the incidence of 8 of China’s top 10 cancers
VI. Although there is no upper limit on the amount of exercise, runners must be cautious when increasing the amount of exercise. Although there is no upper limit on the amount of exercise, runners must be cautious when increasing the amount of exercise. Running is an accumulation load. As the amount of running increases, the load on the joints sometimes becomes a double-edged sword, and the It can make the joints stronger, and if the heavy-duty joint is not repaired in time, it may lead to joint wear. Unreasonable load may lead to premature wear of joints.
The Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy’s review as early as 2017 is based on whether sports people face a higher risk of joint wear. Scientific evidence-based important conclusions and recommendations: the incidence of arthritis in fitness runners is only 3.5%, while the incidence of arthritis in sedentary people is 10.2%, but the incidence of arthritis in competitive runners also reaches 13.3%. Generally speaking, running is conducive to joint health, but excessive and high-intensity running can It can cause joint problems.
The topic of great concern to the public is whether it will cause arthritis in the long-term future if the running continues for a long time, such as 5 years, 10 years and 20 years? There is no need to worry about this problem at all. Even for runners who have been running for 15 years, compared with the lack of athletes and competitive runners, the probability of developing hip and knee osteoarthritis is not high. Running is a long-term safe exercise, and it will also bring long-term benefits to knee and hip health. On the contrary, people who lack exercise are more likely to have osteoarthritis in the future.
So, what is overrunning? What is this boundary? According to this study, the upper limit of safe running is more than 92 kilometres per week, that is, 368 kilometres per month. Of course, the upper limit of running volume this month is only the theoretical value obtained on the basis of research, which does not mean that this amount cannot be absolutely broken through. It still returns to the central idea of the full text. There is no upper limit on the amount of exercise, but there is an upper limit on the amount of individual exercise. This upper limit is that the body can Increasing the amount of running step by step can greatly avoid the risk of injury caused by the increase in the amount of exercise, and at the same time, you can fully benefit from the health benefits brought by the increase in the amount of exercise.
VII. Summary
There is no doubt that the more exercise, the more health benefits. Although it seems that the more exercise, the risk of sports injury will also increase, the public must realise that the health benefits brought by increased exercise significantly greater than the risk of injury. Reducing the risk of injury depends on scientific exercise. There is no upper limit on the amount of exercise, but there is an upper limit on the amount of individual exercise. This upper limit is the individual’s endurance.
