The Most Effective Medical Treatment Ever Devised

Look far and wide and you won’t find more effective medicines for preventing and treating disease than physical activity and exercise.

Some people watch the Super Bowl each year just to see the entertaining commercials. I never watch the game live, because I can’t stand what those “creative” commercials are selling.

First in line are the fast food giants, selling the saltiest, greasiest, fat-loaded industrial-processed substitutes for real food on the planet. Next come the factory-made salt-fat snack bombs, containing lists of chemicals so long it’s hard to find anything relating to an animal or plant. All shapes and sizes of sugar-and-fat-loaded desserts are on parade. And to wash down these substitutes for real food, pick your poison: artificially colored sugar-bomb colas, beers aplenty and, back by lobbyist demand, whiskeys, rums, gins, and vodkas—the hard stuff.

Toward the end of every commercial break come the ads from big pharma. The message chain makes sense. Now that you’re sick from all that toxic crap, take one of these and you’ll feel better. Of course, all the side effects might be worse than your current symptoms!

Meanwhile, during the few minutes the game is on air, some of the fittest athletes in the world perform amazing feats of strength, endurance, power, and athleticism. Think they consume the toxic products advertised in the commercials? Not on your life. What they consume is the greatest medical remedy ever known.

The Miracle Disease Treatment to the Rescue

Fast and junk food will eventually make you sick, as will soda, alcohol, and big pharma. Meanwhile, there’s a age-old treatment that’s not only effective in preventing just about every disease in the books, it also will ease the worst symptoms of a disease you already have. What’s more astounding is this treatment has no side effects and need cost you nothing.

In case you haven’t guessed, this treatment is called physical activity (PA), and one of its children is called exercise. PA and exercise are not the same thing. Physical Activity (PA) is defined as any bodily movement produced by the contraction of skeletal muscles that results in an increase in caloric requirements over resting energy expenditure (EE). Exercise, on the other hand, is a type of PA consisting of planned, structured, and repetitive bodily movement done to improve or maintain one or more physical fitness components.¹ Both PA and exercise positively influence the health-related components of physical fitness, which include:

• Body composition
• Cardiorespiratory endurance
• Muscular strength
• Muscular endurance
• Flexibility

The Astounding Medical Benefits of Physical Activity (PA)

There is abundant evidence supporting the inverse relationship between regular PA or exercise and premature mortality.² In other words, the more physically active you are, the less likely you are to die early and the more likely you are to avert disease. No other medicine or treatment can promise you that. Even if you already have a disease, never give up. There’s clear evidence that PA and exercise can ease your suffering. Consider the facts.

PA Benefits to Patients with Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Diseases

PA and exercise are central components of rehabilitation programs for people with cardiovascular (CVD), peripheral arterial, cerebrovascular accident (STROKE), and pulmonary diseases. Regular PA reduces risk and disability and promotes an active lifestyle while slowing, stabilizing, and even reversing progression of these diseases.³

PA Benefits to Patients with Metabolic Diseases

PA and exercise are safe and effective in the management of many metabolic diseases.⁴ For instance, PA prevents health complications, insulin resistance, and type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) progression and reduces low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglyceride concentrations for those with Dyslipidemia. Aerobic exercise and strength training promote reductions in resting SBP and DBP for people with Hypertension and reduce the risk of acquiring symptoms of the Metabolic Syndrome cluster.There’s also a dose-dependent relationship between PA levels and magnitude of weight loss for Overweight and Obese people, meaning the more they move the more they lose.

PA Benefits to Patients with Debilitating Diseases⁴

PA and exercise reduce fall risk, pain, and joint stiffness in people with Arthritis and can delay the onset of Osteoporosis by increasing bone density and strength. High volumes of PA lower the risk of developing 13 kinds of cancer and strongly improve quality of life and outcomes of cancer survivors. PA and exercise also have beneficial effects on the physical and psychological symptoms and quality of life of patients with Fibromyalgia, Chronic Kidney Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and HIV, while improving conditioning, functional independence, and safety for those with Spinal Cord Injuries.

PA Benefits to Patients with Brain-Related Disorders

Regular PA also has a profound effect on brain health and brain-related disorders.⁵ It improves multiple dimensions of cognition including attention and inhibition in those with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and reduces the risk for dementia, memory loss, and decreased functional ability in those with Alzheimer’s Disease. Exercise has proven to be as effective as psychotherapy and psychiatric drugs for those suffering from Anxiety and Depression and it improves time on task and correct responding in those with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Developing muscular and aerobic fitness also helps people with Cerebral Palsy hinder functional deterioration and associated physical dependence in adulthood, improves fitness and body composition in adults with Intellectual Disability and Down Syndrome, and reduces disease severity and slows the progression of Parkinson’s Disease.

Your Physical Activity Prescription Is Ready for Pickup

Thirty years ago, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), one of the world’s foremost fitness authorities, proposed that Americans needed to engage in aerobic activity three times per week for 20 minutes each time in order to live longer and avert disease. That dose did indeed produce benefits, but it turned out to be too conservative.

Today ACSM prescribes aerobic activity five times per week for 30 minutes and also recommends at least two days per week of muscular strength and endurance training.⁶ This means that people need about 210 minutes per week (3-1/2 hours) of PA. That’s less than 5% of the time the average American spends on television and the Internet and less than 50% the time spent shopping.

The news gets better. It turns out there’s a dose-dependent response with PA and exercise, which means greater amounts of PA—preferably on most days of the week—prevent disease and offset disease symptoms even more than the minimum dose.⁷ So if you want to live longer and feel better no matter what ails you, just be active every day!

Many Roads Lead to the Mecca of PA Benefits

The intensity of PA is commonly expressed in metabolic equivalents, or METs for short. One MET is the metabolic activity of your body at rest. So if you walk slowly to the store at 2 METs of exertion, that’s twice the effort it takes to sit on the couch. The good news is that many different physical activities burn lots of calories by upping your METs.

Metabolic Equivalents (METs) of Common Physical Activities⁸

	Light (1.6-2.9 METs)		Moderate (3.0-5.9 METs)		Vigorous (≥ 6.0 METs)
Walking & Running	Walking slowly at store, home, office	2.0	Walking 3.0 mi./hr.	3.0	Walking 4.5 mi./hr.	6.3
			Walking 4.0 mi./hr.	5.0	Hiking w/ light pack	7.0
					Hiking hills	8.3
					Jogging 5.0 mi./hr. Jogging 6.0 mi./hr. Jogging 7.0 mi./hr.	8.0 10.0 11.5
Household & Occupation	Standing & doing light work, make bed, dishes, ironing, cooking, store clerk	2.3	Cleaning up, washing windows, washing car, cleaning garage	3.0	Shoveling sand, coal, snow	7.0
			Carpentry	3.6	Carrying bricks, lumber	7.5
			Carrying/stacking wood	5.5	Heavy farming such as bailing hay	8.0
			Pushing lawn mower	5.5	Digging ditches	8.5
Leisure & Sports	Billiards	2.5	Badminton	4.5	Bicycle – 10 mph – 12 mph – 14 mph	6.0 8.0 10.0
	Power boating	2.5	Basketball shooting	4.5	Basketball game	8.0
	Croquet	2.5	Ballroom dancing – Slow – Fast	3.0 4.5	CC skiing – Slow – Fast	7.0 9.0
	Darts	2.5	Fishing (walking)	4.0	Soccer – Casual – Competitive	7.0 10.0
	Fishing (sitting)	2.5	Golf (walking & carrying clubs)	4.3	Swimming – Slow – Medium – Fast	6.0 8.0 11.0
	Playing musical instrument	2.5	Sailing or windsurfing Tennis doubles	3.0 5.0	Tennis singles	8.0
			Ping Pong Noncompetitive volleyball	4.0 4.0	Competitive volleyball	8.0
1.0 MET = the amount of energy burned by the human body at rest

As you see, there are so many fun ways to acquire large doses of PA that it needn’t be drudgery. There’s more to getting in your METs than using weight machines and stationary aerobic equipment, which are okay if you like them, but not necessary.

How about a Super Bowl Commercial for a Miracle Medicine called Exercise?

In all my days of watching sports on TV, I’ve never seen an ad promoting the recommended dose of PA to avoid premature death and improve wellness. Then again, I’ve never in all my years of visiting doctors heard a single one, from any specialty, prescribe and explain ACSM’s health-altering dosage of exercise.

Instead you get a script for big pharma’s drug de jour. It might ease a symptom of whatever ails you. But how much better it would be to take something that’s effective against all your symptoms—and even prevents symptoms you don’t yet have? Take it from decades of evidence-based medical research—if you want to live longer, if you want to feel better and live better no matter what ails you, just perform your workouts and play-outs for 3-1/2 hours each week. Nothing can compare when it comes to transforming your body, mind, emotions, and life.

Footnotes

1. (2022). ACSM’s guidelines for exercise testing and prescription, 11th Ed. p. 1. Philadelphia, PA: Walters Kluver.
2. (2022). ACSM’s guidelines for exercise testing and prescription, 11th Ed. p. 9.
3. (2022). ACSM’s guidelines for exercise testing and prescription, 11th Ed. pp. 226-261.
4. (2022). ACSM’s guidelines for exercise testing and prescription, 11th Ed. pp. 276-299.
5. (2022). ACSM’s guidelines for exercise testing and prescription, 11th Ed. p. 378-423.
6. (2022). ACSM’s resources for the personal trainer, 6th Ed. Trent A. Hargens, Sr. Editor. pp. 370-371. New York: Walters Kluwer.
7. (2022). ACSM’s guidelines for exercise testing and prescription, 11th Ed. p. 9.
8. Modified from (2022). ACSM’s guidelines for exercise testing and prescription, 11th Ed. p. 3