Too Much Exercise can be Dangerous

Running more than four miles a day could be dangerous to your health, suggests a study that examined how much exercise is too much.

Researchers focused on 2,400 heart attack survivors and found that the more exercise they did, the less risk they faced of dying from heart disease -- up to a point.

Heart Health also Affected by Sitting too Much, Not Just Lack of Exercise
Sedentary behaviors may lower cardiovascular fitness levels, find cardiologists at UT southwestern Medical center.

Benefits began to decline among those who ran more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) per week.

Among walkers, the turning point, when benefits were lost, was seen in those who did more than 46 miles per week, or 6.5 miles per day.

Even more, there was a statistically significant cardiovascular risk associated with the highest levels of exercise, said the study led by Paul Williams of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Paul Thompson of the Department of Cardiology at Hartford Hospital.

Exercise and Nutritional Therapy may Help Patients With Advanced Cancer
A new review has found that a rehabilitation program that combines nutritional counseling, exercise and symptom control helps patients with advanced cancer

"Results suggest that the benefits of running or walking do not accrue indefinitely and that above some level, perhaps 30 miles per week of running, there is a significant increase in risk," the study said.

"Competitive running events also appear to increase the risk of an acute event."

Exercise Better Than Medicine for Longer Life Among Older Women
Researchers at Queensland University of Technology suggest that recommending moderate to high intensity physical activity to older age women was better than medicine.

The researchers cautioned that since their study focused on heart attack survivors, their results might not be generalizable to the population at large.

Experts generally recommend two and a half hours of moderate exercise each week, or 75 minutes weekly of vigorous exercise for a healthy heart and body.

Less Exercise Responsible for Expanding Waistlines
Sedentary lifestyle and not caloric intake may be to blame for increased obesity in the United States.

"For patients with heart disease, almost all should be exercising, and generally most should be exercising 30-40 minutes most days," said Carl Lavie, a cardiologist at the John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans.

"But from a health stand-point, there is no reason to exercise much longer than that and especially not more than 60 minutes on most days."

The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Source-AFP