LIBRARY OF LIFE

[EN]:  You Won’t Live Longer by Diet or Exercise Alone, Study Says

Health food or exercise alone isn’t enough to prevent chronic disease, new research shows. Contrary to popular belief, you can’t outrun the toll of a poor diet – and healthy eating, on its own, won’t ward off disease. Most people know that working out and eating well are critical components of overall health. But a sweeping study published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that hitting the gym won’t counteract the consequences of consuming fat-laden foods, and mainlining kale can’t cancel out sedentary habits. “Sensationalized headlines and misleading advertisement for exercise regimens to lure consumers into the idea of ‘working out to eat whatever they want’ have fueled circulation of the myth about ‘exercise outrunning a bad diet,’” the study authors wrote. Previous animal studies as well as a few human ones have backed this up, suggesting that, at least in the short term, strenuous exercise can counteract the effects of overeating.

So an international team of researchers examined data from nearly 350,000 participants collected from the U.K. Biobank, an enormous medical database with health information from people across Britain, and followed up over a decade-long period. The study participants, median age 57, were healthy at the outset of the study, meaning they were not diagnosed with conditions like cardiovascular disease, cancer or chronic pain.

Analyzing self-reported questionnaires, the experts broke people’s diets down by quality. For instance, high-quality diets had at least 4.5 cups of fruit and vegetables per day, two or more servings of fish per week, less than two servings of processed meats per week and no more than five servings of red meat per week. The researchers also measured activity levels using responses from another questionnaire that asked about the total minutes participants spent walking and engaging in moderate physical activity, like carrying light loads or biking at a steady pace, and vigorous physical activity that lasted more than 10 minutes at a time. The authors wrote that it was the first study to examine diet and exercise alongside both general mortality and specific lethal diseases, like cancer.

Not surprisingly, people with both higher levels of physical activity and better quality diets had the lowest mortality risk. Overall physical activity levels were associated with a lower mortality risk, but those who regularly engaged in vigorous exercise — the kind that makes you break a sweat — had a particularly lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality. And even just 10 to 75 minutes per week made a difference. This is NOT something very new, as it has been highlighted in numerous studies about Mediterranean Diet.

Regardless of your diet, researcher Dr. Ding said, “physical activity is important. And whatever your physical activity is, diet is important.”
The study highlights the importance of viewing food and exercise as components of holistic health, Dr. Ding said, instead of calculating how many miles can “cancel out” a cookie. “It’s not just about burning calories,” she said. “We need to shift that thinking.”

Read the full article , very intersting and informative, reproduced by the New York Times