Dr. Mercola August 18 2005 791 views
For the first time, researchers have done a study on how much exercise women should be capable of for their age. Previous studies were performed only on men, and the numbers were estimated for women.
Exercise Stress Tests
The study looked at exercise stress tests on more than 5,700 women over the age of 35 with no symptoms or history of heart trouble. Women's expected exercise capacity turned out to be slightly lower than men's, and also decreased slightly more rapidly with advancing age.
The average 50-year-old woman, for example, should be able to reach 8.2 metabolic equivalents (METs), while the exercise capacity for a man of similar age should be 9.2 METs. (Moderate walking burns three to six METs per minute; running burns upwards of 6 METs.)
Risk of Death Cut in Half
One important finding of the study was that women who are fit enough to be capable of exercising at 85 percent or more of their expected capacity had their risk of death within eight years cut in half compared to those below the 85 percent mark.
For this finding, researchers tracked both the 5,700 women of the original study, and an additional group of more than 4,400 women with heart disease symptoms. Both groups showed the same drastically reduced risk of death if their capacity was at least 85 percent of the normal level.
New Guidelines Will Help Patients and Doctors
Dr. Gerald Fletcher, a cardiologist and spokesman for the American Heart Association, said the new guidelines should help encourage women with poor fitness levels to get more exercise.
Drs. William Kraus and Pamela Douglas hoped that the results, especially the vastly lessened death risk that comes with fitness, would also spur doctors to pay more attention to their patients' fitness levels and ask them about their exercise habits.
Many of the drugs you take and food and fitness guidelines you are encouraged to follow by conventional health "authorities" have only been tested on a very small portion of the population. All too frequently, they have never once been tested on women, children, the ill, or the elderly, even if those populations are the ones most likely to be using the drugs or the guidelines -- meaning the actual effects on all such people are unknown.
That being said, I am glad that a study such as this one has finally been conducted, not least because it demonstrates so clearly once again what I and many others have been saying for years: exercise will radically improve and extend your life.
I have been exercising for nearly 40 years and strongly believe it has always been one of the secret reasons why I have been able to achieve as much as I have. I have more energy than most people I know and can jump out of bed at 4 a.m. and think nothing of running seven miles and then putting in a full 16-hour day at the office. It isn't a strain or challenge when you have all the energy you need -- energy that a balanced lifestyle and exercise can provide you.
Studies I ran earlier this spring found that women who exercised from four to seven hours a week cut their chances of sudden cardiac arrest in half and reduce their risk of breast cancer.
That's why, if you want to become healthy, it's important to view exercise as a drug that needs to be precisely prescribed in order to achieve maximum benefits. If you need some direction to get started, I urge you to review my exercise page that includes links to other pages and a free table you can download to keep track of your progress.
Exercise will help you:
Remember that exercise needs to be intense enough to get your heart rate elevated in order to work properly. If you have health problems that prevent you from starting at your maximum level right away, start small and build up. But above all, do it. Your body will thank you for it.
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