The cover story of the September 12, 2016 issue of Time magazine features "the exercise cure, the surprising science of a life changing workout." The article which details the multiple values of physical exercise for human well-being was written by Mandy Oaklander, and in the subscript he observes that "doctors, researchers, scientists, even ancient philosophers have long claimed exercise works like a miracle drug. Now they have proof."
He particularly cites the marvelous work of Mark Tarnopolsky of McMaster University in Ontario . I use his research results in my arguments regularly. One of the most persuasive stories he has published involved a mutant mouse that has been so modified as to mimic the rare clinical condition called progeria. This mouse exhibits all of the standard changes associated with aging only they happen at early age. Mark took these mice and exercised them, and found that all of the changes were arrested.
There is now a total cascade of research that validates the premise that physical exercise is the long sought after "fountain of youth."
It has been my area of study for 40 years. In 1984 my summary paper called the "Disuse Syndrome" claimed that most of the pathologies encountered by our human organism were not due to some extrinsic agency but to inactivity, which is disuse in my language.
My precept holds that much heart trouble, musculoskeletal trouble, metabolic trouble, neurologic problem, immunologic problem, and premature aging are do fundamentally to under activity of the movement system. Almost all of the body serves movement purposes. When a person exercises only the brain is spared the diversion of blood to the muscles. Life and movement are synonymous.
I presented a paper at the recent meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Boston entitled "why is exercise good and its lack bad for everything?" My conclusion is that it's the Law; that it is nothing more than an expression of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which rephrased is "use it or lose it." Nature rewards vitality more certainly than inactivity.
I have written a previous blog entitled "exercise as the oboe's A." As a Symphony
buff I identify that the orchestra is busy bashing away randomly until the concert Master summons the oboe to play A. All of the instruments tune in to the signal, and from that moment on they are all an ensemble.
So too does exercise give all of the body's trillions of genes the signal that they should tune in to the master signal.
Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, in the past said "the survival of the fittest." This is inevitably true then, now, and in the future. Our well-being is securely tied to our fitness level which is accomplished only by exercise. None of the world's drugs, operations, or other fancy medical maneuvers can replace this. It is about time that Time reached the imperative messaging that movement is life and life is movement.
My 45 personal marathons are my testament to this major truth.