Contrary to the general perception that one should slow down as one ages, a team of researchers has said that the key to longer life is associated with physical activity even during sunset years.
The researchers from Harvard University said that physical activity shifted energy away from processes that compromised health and toward mechanisms in the body that extended it. This guarded against chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and even some cancers, said the study published in Journal PNAS.
The study used evolutionary and biomedical evidence showing that people, who evolved to live many decades after they stopped reproducing, also evolved to be relatively active in their later years.
“The response also causes the release of exercise-related antioxidants and anti-inflammatories and enhances blood flow. In the absence of physical activity, these responses are activated less,” the researchers said.
People must choose to exercise, that is, do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health and fitness. Physical activity levels have been decreasing worldwide as machines and technology replace human labour. The researchers' advice is for people to do something and to try to make it enjoyable so they will keep it up.
Even small amounts of physical activity—just 10 or 20 minutes a day —substantially lower the risk of mortality.
The World Health Organisation already recommends that children and adolescents aged five to 17years should do at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity daily.
In fact, on Thursday, the WHO issued a statement, calling upon the nation in its South-East Asia Region to accelerate action to address insufficient physical activity which is as high as 74 per cent among adolescents, to arrest and reverse the growing epidemic of NCDs and promote physical and mental well-being.
“Physical activity helps prevent NCDs such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers, which continue to be leading killer diseases in the Region and a risk for severe disease and deaths in the ingoing Covid-19 pandemic,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region while addressing a virtual meeting of health officials and partners from member countries where the Regional Roadmap for implementation of Global Action Plan for Physical Activity (GAPPA) was launched.
The Regional roadmap aims to facilitate context-specific activities to achieve 10 per cent relative reduction of insufficient physical activity by 2025, and 15 per cent improvement in global levels by 2030.
Globally, 23 per cent adults and 81 per cent adolescents aged 11–17 years do not meet WHO recommendations for physical activity. In the WHO South-East Asia Region, physical inactivity among adults is around 15 per cent and 74 per cent among adolescents.