"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter if you are a lion or a gazelle-- when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."
Sir Roger Bannister, is a personal hero of mine. He is a runner and a physician. In addition to becoming a renowned neurologist, he is also the first person to break the four minute mile. Prior to Sir Roger, the four minute mile was thought to be an unbreakable barrier. It was generally thought to be the absolute maximum speed that a human being could run. Sir Roger shattered that barrier, and was an obvious believer in the merits of running.
It turns out that his quote was not just good advice for gazelles and lions, but for human beings as well. Based on the results of a Danish study, running just 1 - 2.5 hours per week can add as much as six years to your life. You can click on the link above, but here are the highlights:
The results are part of a population study which involved 20,000 participants over 35 years. There were about 18,000 non runners and 2000 runners in the study. Long story short, running increased life expectancy for about 5.6 years for women, and about 6.2 years for men. This sounds great, but here is the most staggering fact from the study to me: over the period of the study, 10,158 non runners died, but only 122 runners. The mortality rate for the non runners was almost DOUBLE over the 35 year period of the study!
This study basically confirms something that many of us have believed for years. We were made to run. Running, or other cardio intensive exercise is mandatory for human health. In this blog, I spend a lot of time talking about caveman nutrition, and eating like our primal ancestors, but I would point out that running is how our primal ancestors got their food. Before we drove cars or rode horses, we ran. We ran to find food. We occasionally chased our food down. We ran to escape predators, and we ran to take shelter from nature. Running was not just a way to lose weight. It was a way of life.
It is not so hard to believe that the same running which our ancestors used to prolong their lives would also work to prolong our lives. After all, we have the same bodies, and mostly the same DNA. Although we are no longer dependent on running to find food or avoid predators, our bodies don't know it. There is little to no doubt: our bodies need to run.
Jake, you say, that's great, but I'm not interested in living longer. I hear that a lot, but not exactly in those words. Usually the person expressing this sentiment says "well, you have to die of something." True enough, and I will be the first to admit that you can't live forever. In my opinion, it's not about quantity, but about quality. To those of you who were thinking those words, how about a life free of high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, depression, arthritis, chronic pain, and chronic lung disease. Running has been shown to impact all of these illnesses. If you don't care about having a heart attack or stroke, how about having more energy to perform your daily activities, and freedom from feeling tired or worn out throughout the day. All of these benefits come from running or other strenuous exercise. Not too bad for a 1 - 2.5 hour per week investment.
All things considered, I have to agree with Sir Roger Bannister: you'd better be running
M. Jacob Ott, M. D.
No comments:
Post a Comment