Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Treadmilled Rats

It doesn't seem like much of a necessary commitment to arrive at such a satisfactory conclusion. As an investment in motivated time and action, just 45 minutes of moderate exercise performed three times weekly for a guarded guarantee of better health down the pipeline?

Apart from the fact that those 45 minutes of moderate exercise engaged in three times a week, as a minimum investment, have more immediate benefits of making one feel good, the added benefit of knowing that installing such a routine in your life would have pronounced long-term benefits represents a huge net gain.

We've heard it said often enough, that to battle the onset of lifestyle disease, including obesity there is nothing more effective than using our muscles. And there is nothing more sensible than incorporating a daily regimen, however brief, into our lifestyle so that it becomes an automatic action, a short period of time set aside routinely for activity. Even if it's just walking somewhere, ambling along at a fairly decent pace. There is much to gain, and nothing to lose.

On the other hand, leading a completely sedentary lifestyle, eating all too well, and not giving your body the opportunity to work off those calories, nor your sinews and muscles the opportunity to strut their stuff also leads to gains, not losses. The wrong kind, unfortunately, as the pounds pile up, so gradually they're hardly noticed until suddenly the body has become congealed with fat under our dermal layer, and our movements become creaky, our organs beset with failure.

Mice genetically bred so that they would age much faster than those whose genetic imprinting was not tampered with, were given an experiment. Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton had two sets of mice. One set allowed to sit about, eat, and just do as they wished. The other set given regular tasks, of middling treadmill exercises for 45-minute periods three times weekly.

The result was, five months later when the experiment concluded, that the mice that were made to exercise looked young and healthy and active. While those left to their own devices were exhibiting all the symptoms of aging, shrinking in size, experiencing hearing and seeing losses; greying, patchy fur. The cost in health and longevity was obvious.

The mice accustomed to being exercised scurried and scampered about their cages, while their non-exercised counterparts huddled quietly in corners, immobile. What is common to the rats' experience is common to all living creatures, including humankind.

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