BRITAIN’S health department calls it “the silent killer”. Others have labelled it “the new smoking”. Lack of physical activity has crept up the list of global causes of death to fourth place, after high blood pressure, smoking and high blood sugar—not least because it helps waistlines expand.
Even a little exercise has a huge health effect, whether or not people shed their extra pounds. Research presented on August 30th at a cardiology conference in London suggests that walking fast for 25 minutes a day can buy three to seven years of extra life. A bigger study by a team at Cambridge University tracked 300,000 Europeans over 12 years, and found that a brisk daily 20-minute walk, or the equivalent, cut the annual death rate for people of normal weight by a quarter, and for the obese by 16%. Getting everyone sedentary to do this would save twice as many lives as ending obesity, says Ulf Ekelund, the lead researcher.
Walking 20 minutes a day falls just short of the minimum exercise that the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends. Adults, it says, should do at least 150 minutes weekly of moderate exercise, such as walking...
from The Economist: International http://ift.tt/1hXfZwt
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