Pillar 4

Delay the onset of chronic disease and ailments or manage existing conditions

If you have a chronic condition, regular exercise can help you manage symptoms and improve your health. Aerobic exercise can help improve your heart health and endurance and aid in weight loss. Strength training can improve muscle strength and endurance, make it easier to do daily activities, slow disease related declines in muscle strength and provide stability to joints. Flexibility exercises may help you to have optimal range of motion about your joints, so they can function best, and stability exercises may reduce risk of falls.

Heart disease

Regular exercise can help improve your heart health. Recent studies have shown that interval training is often tolerated in people with heart disease and it can produce significant benefits. For people with high blood pressure, exercise can lower your risk of dying of heart disease and lower the risk of hearth disease progressing.

Diabetes

Regular exercise can help insulin more effectively lower your blood sugar level. Physical activity can also help you control your weight and boost your energy. If you have type 2 diabetes, exercise can lower your risk of dying of heart disease.

Asthma

Often, exercise can help control the frequency and severity of asthma attacks.

Back Pain

Regular low impact aerobic activities can increase strength and endurance in your back and improve muscle function. Abdominal and back muscle exercises (core strengthening exercises) may help reduce symptoms by strengthening the muscles around your spine. Stretching, reduces muscle tension and improves mobility.

Arthritis

Exercise can reduce pain, help maintain muscle strength in affected joints and reduce joint stiffness and inflammation. It can also improve physical function and quality of life for people who live with arthritis.

Cancer

According to the American Cancer Society Guidelines on Nutrition and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention, getting more physical activity is associated with a lower risk for several types of cancer, including breast, prostate, colon and possibly pancreatic cancer. Exercise can improve the quality of life for people who’ve had cancer. It should be embedded as a part of standard practice in cancer care and viewed as an adjunct therapy that helps counteract the adverse effects of cancer and its treatment.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Regular physical activity benefits the brain. Studies show that people who are physically active are less likely to experience a decline in their mental function and have a lowered risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Physical activity is one of the known modifiable risk factors for dementia.

Exercise can improve cognition in people with dementia and people who exercise regularly are at less risk of dementia and cognitive impairment.

Next pillar