Workout Wonders
Three ways exercise can improve and lengthen your life.
By Pedro Iniguez
Exercise Can Make You Smarter
A recent study determined that just three hours of exercise a week is all it takes to enhance memory and other cognitive abilities in your brain. The study found that the increased blood flow from the workout helps counteract the brain shrinkage that begins about the age of 40. The study, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says that aerobic exercise increased the brain's gray matter. After only three months of exercise, the exercise group had the brain volumes of people three years younger.
Exercise Improves Sexual Health
Men who exercise 20-30 minutes daily in a moderate to vigorous manner are less likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction compared to male couch potatoes who engage in hardly any exercise.
Exercise May Help Prevent Cancer
Some studies show that fat may increase a person's chance of developing cancer. Being overweight and inactive contributes to one-third of breast, colon, eudiometrical, kidney and esophageal cancer worldwide, according to estimates in a February 2002 report by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research and Cancer. This equates to approximately 102,000 to 135,000 cases in the US alone.
The more fat cells a person carries, the more estrogen is present, since fat cells generate small amounts of estrogen. Estrogen can feed some types of breast cancers. Excess fat around the stomach increases cancer risk more than fat around the hips and/or thighs. But excessive fat is bad anywhere on the body.
According to Dr. George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, fat cells are an active substance that are constantly producing and secreting hormones and other "growth factors." Another hormone that is secreted is called cortisol. This molecule, scientists believe, is the major reason the body stores fat. Consequently, the more overweight an individual becomes, the more cortisol is created, resulting in a vicious cycle of gaining weight. Furthermore, the cells in an overweight individual may grow and divide at an accelerated rate, causing them to divide more often than in a thinner person's body. A greater number of these divisions could increase the chances that a random mutation could occur, leading to cancer.
Another theory about how fat cells can contribute to cancer is that overweight people produce more insulin, particularly women, which is thought to stimulate cell division and replication.
Recent studies have shown that by exercising, individuals not only decrease their fat deposits, but also regulate hormone levels that could cause breast, prostrate and other cancers. In addition, exercise speeds the digestive process, shortening exposure of the bowel lining to harmful substances that could cause colon cancer.
Pedro Iniguez holds a master's degree in physical therapy and co-owns Iniguez Physical Therapy and Fitness Center in Silver City and Bayard, as well as Belleza Salon & Tanning in Silver City.