The Amazing Anti-Aging Miracle

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-with-white-sunvisor-running-40751/

If there was something that:

• Dramatically increased longevity

• Dramatically decreased the risk of neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s and dementia

• Reduced depression and anxiety better than any medication currently on the market

• Gave you more energy

• Made you look better

• Improved sexual function and libido

• And more!

Would you use it?

Some of you reading this might be hesitant because of cost concerns, but what if I told you that depending on how you choose to go about it, you can potentially get it for FREE for Life?!

Kind of a no-brainer, right?

Well, the miracle I’m talking about is exercise.

Now, you probably were already aware that exercise was good for you. I certainly was, but what I wasn’t aware of until a few weeks ago was just how good when it comes to things like longevity and resisting the effects of aging.

I’ve recently come across some You Tube videos featuring Dr. Peter Attia who runs an anti-aging clinic and who has researched the effects of various types of exercise on health and aging. I was shocked by the statistics he has shared on various videos.

I won’t go into statistics for specific conditions here, but I do want to give you an overview of the magnitude of how important exercise is to living a long, healthy life.

Before I talk about the benefits of exercise, as a basis of comparison, let’s look at how lives are impacted by things we all know are bad from a health standpoint. Looking at death rates for given age ranges and other demographic-matched groups, having Type II Diabetes, for example, raises your risk of death in a given year by about 40%.

In other words, if you have diabetes, you’re 40% more likely to die in a given year than someone about your same age, race, etc.. That’s a pretty significant increase in mortality risk. The statistics are similar for unhealthy behaviors such as smoking.

By comparison, the death rate of a very sedentary person who gets basically no exercise is 300% to 500% higher in a given year than those of similar demographics on the elite end of the fitness scale, the ones who get the most exercise.

That’s pretty remarkable, but as desirable as it may be, being elite in one’s exercise and fitness levels is a difficult task to manage. A lot of people don’t have the time, energy, motivation, and/or resources to reach and sustain an elite fitness status.

The good news is that you can get about half the benefits of elite fitness with only a low to moderate amount and intensity of exercise.

What’s low to moderate? A brisk walk thirty minutes every day is enough to get you there! And a variety of exercises all “count” – cardio and/or strength training alike. Chances are, even if you’re not yet a big fan of exercise, you can find something that you can at least tolerate doing on a regular basis if you put a little effort into it.

And remember, it’s not just your mortality risk that’s cut drastically by regular exercise – as I mentioned previously, so too is your risk of age-related neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s! In fact, as a single intervention, exercise is by far the most impactful habit you can have on brain health in general!

Exercise might not seem as exciting as the high-tech advancements in medicine like stem cells and gene therapy, but for the vast majority of people, it is by far the most powerful tool available for living long and aging well. And even something as simple as going for a walk that’s free to do and readily accessible to almost everyone has huge payoffs in helping you resist the ravages of aging.

It’s definitely worth considering if you aren’t already exercising and definitely worth upping and/or diversifying your existing exercise game a bit if you’re able to!

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.