{"id":4632,"date":"2022-10-25T04:34:16","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T04:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthnewscentral.com\/?p=4632"},"modified":"2022-10-25T04:34:16","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T04:34:16","slug":"extend-life-through-weightlifting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthnewscentral.com\/extend-life-through-weightlifting\/","title":{"rendered":"Extend Life Through Weightlifting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Marathon and Hook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Researchers have been looking for ways to extend life, and they found that older adults who participated in weightlifting had lower mortality rates. This is exactly what their new research discovered: there are longevity benefits to be made simply by pumping iron. This holds especially true for women.<\/p>\n

Is building muscles really important when we want to live longer? According to new research, this may very well be true. When they investigated on this matter, they saw how lifting weights on a regular basis was linked to a lower risk of death, and this is true for any cause. The only exception on the list is cancer. The details of their findings were published online on September 27 in the\u00a0British Journal of Sports Medicine.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOlder adults who participated in weight lifting exercise had significantly lower mortality before and after factoring in\u00a0aerobic exercise<\/a>\u00a0participation, and importantly, those who did both\u00a0types of exercise<\/a>\u00a0had the lowest risk,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> study lead author,\u00a0Jessica Gorzelitz, PhD<\/a>, said. She\u2019s a researcher in the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics at the National Cancer Institute, and assistant professor of health promotion at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. The findings they made proved to be strong when it comes to proving the current Physical Activity Guidelines for U.S. adults, she noted.<\/p>\n

Activity Guidelines Push for a Kind of Strength Training<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There are current guidelines made on\u00a0physical activity<\/a>\u00a0for all adults. The experts recommend at least 150 weekly minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity, or at least 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic activity, or an equal mix of both. The latter is often referred to as MVPA (moderate to vigorous physical activity).<\/p>\n

While aerobic exercises are important, the guidelines set also included two or more days of strengthening activities that incorporate the body\u2019s major muscle groups. This means that the legs, hips, back, abdomen chest, shoulders, and arms are included.<\/p>\n

Aerobic exercise is also called \u201ccardio.\u201d This comes with a myriad of health benefits. Included here are lower risk of heart disease, better blood sugar control blood, and decreased risk of death. Still, it remains unclear of exercising with weights may help extend life, this is according to the authors.<\/p>\n

Almost 1 in 4 in the Group Reported Doing Weightlifts on a Regular Basis<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The researchers needed to evaluate how exercising with weights could impact health. This can be done with or without regular aerobic exercise. In order to do so, researchers recruited participants from the\u00a0Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial<\/a>. This started in 1993 and included 154,897 men and women from the ages 55 to 74. They came from a total of 10 different U.S. cancer centers.<\/p>\n

For the final analysis made, they had a total of 99,713 people. As for the percentage, 53 percent of them were female; 91.4 percent were white, 3.3 percent black, 1.4 percent Hispanic, and 3.9 percent came from other races or they hadn\u2019t been identified.<\/p>\n

As for their average age when they began the monitoring period, it was 71 years old. As for the average\u00a0BMI<\/a>\u00a0(body mass index), it was 27.8. For those unfamiliar with how this works, a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is a healthy weight. A 25 to 29.9 is overweight. This was per the\u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC<\/a>) guidelines. For those who have readings of 30 and above are said to be obese.<\/p>\n

The participants were also asked if their exercise regimen over the last year included weights, and if it was a yes, how often did they do this. The answers they got were varied: from less than once a month to several times each week.<\/p>\n

The questionnaire included the frequency and duration of moderate and vigorous intensity when it came to physical activities in the last year. Moderate was described as \u201cactivity where you worked up a light sweat or increased your breathing and heart rate to moderately high levels,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> and vigorous was an \u201cactivity strenuous enough to work up a sweat or increase your breathing and heart rate to very high levels.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Researchers then grouped these participants into 1 of 4 categories. This was based on total weekly minutes of MVPA: 1. Inactive, 0 minutes; 2. Insufficient aerobic MVPA, 1 to 149 minutes; 3. Sufficient, 150 minutes to 300 minutes of moderate, or an equivalent amount of vigorous, activity; and 4. Highly active, 301 or more minutes of moderate, or something tantamount to a vigorous activity.<\/p>\n

Almost 1 in 4, or around 23 percent, of them said that they lifted weights at times and 16 percent reported that they exercised using weights on a regular basis. This meant that they did it around one to six times weekly. Around 1 in 3 people, or 32 percent, of them were able to fulfill the guidelines set. The other 8 percent went beyond. This means that the letter exercised more than five hours weekly on MVPA.<\/p>\n

Lower Death Risks for Those Who Exercised and Weightlifted<\/strong><\/h2>\n

They followed up with the participants during the next 9.5 years. A total of 28,477 of them passed away. Researchers were able to establish the relationships between weight lifting, aerobic activity, and risk of death:<\/p>\n