Today is World Health Day

...so here I am wanging on about how exercise can save your life

You already know that exercise is essential. If you have a condition such as hypertension or diabetes, you probably vaguely know that exercise can make a massive difference in the progression of these diseases. And yet most people do not exercise, even if it could save their life.

Health is a hard sell. It lacks the immediacy and sexiness of a six pack, of a 12-week beach body transformation. It usually only sells it situations of urgency, when people have a heart attack or similar and dip their toe in the freezing water of mortality.

Blood test results indicating that there’s a fire on the horizon are not always enough to get people to act. There’s the initial scare in the doctor’s surgery, the advice to move more and eat better and then the alarm bell fades. Death is too remote until it very suddenly isn’t and this is the great tragedy of public health messaging. Not many people listen.

So here I am, wanging on into the void. If you are diabetic or prediabetic, you can directly affect your insulin sensitivity by exercising. Even a single session improves how your blood deals with blood glucose *immediately*, and that effect lasts for roughly 48 hours. You don’t even have to lose weight for this to happen.

Speaking of weight loss, if you have both prediabetes/diabetes and obesity you have no doubt been lectured on how losing weight can lower your blood sugar levels, but how much weight should you lose? Even a 5% drop can help. If you’re currently 80kg, that’s a 4kg weight loss. Weight loss is not easy, weight maintenance is even harder (which is why GLP-1 agonist weight loss drugs (Semaglutide etc) are so revolutionary and a massive success). But maybe, hopefully, the knowledge that only a small drop in weight can make a huge difference to health makes things less daunting.

Going the extra mile and losing more weight can even put diabetes into remission.

What about you there, reading this to avoid doing work, who doesn’t currently have a health condition but who is completely sedentary, doesn’t give a crap about a beach body and frankly can’t be arsed? How can I entice you my stall of exercise wares?

I urge you to think about future you, in your 60s and older. Picture yourself lying on a floor for hours until someone rescues you because you are unable to get off the floor. Or having to use a walking frame because osteopenia has robbed you of the ability to hold your head up straight for any meaningful period of time.

Frailty is a murderous, hateful enemy of the old and sarcopenia (literally “poverty of the flesh” and referring to the decline of muscle mass that occurs with age) is its favourite weapon. There is a direct association between frailty and reduced longevity and/or reduced quality of life, and sarcopenia is a leading cause of fractures in falls, which in the elderly can be fatal.

But it doesn’t need to be like that. You can do battle with sarcopenia through resistance training, and you can start at literally any age. There is no upper limit. It’s safe for everyone and anyone. Follow a sensible, structured programme and you will see results.

We start losing muscle mass in our 20s. The process speeds up at 40 and then really revs up at 60. The process of sarcopenia has already begun in your body, and if you are middle-aged and sedentary you will already have noticed it. Can you get out of a chair easily without using the armrests? Can you get off the floor while retaining some dignity? Can you carry bags of shopping like you used to be able to?

If you really want a stark look at your lower body strength and power do this 30-second sit to stand test (featuring a participant who seems to have come directly to the clinic wearing her church crown). Note that the normative data given in the video is for people aged 60 and over but you can still do it if you’re younger. I suggest doing the test, then doing some resistance training for half an hour, twice a week, for six weeks, and then re-testing. Prepare to be amazed at what you can do.