Strengthening Muscles Has Been Linked To Lower Mortality Rate
Regular exercises or physical activities are always beneficial regardless of any age barriers. Including a moderate amount of exercise will only bring health benefits and will also add up years into your life.Â
Strengthening Muscles Has Been Linked To Lower Mortality Rate
According to the American College of Sports Medicine(ACSM), and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), moderate exercise for at least 30 minutes daily is required for a better healthy lifestyle.
From a recent survey, it is found that more than 50% of the US adult population is not meeting their daily exercise recommendations. Researchers all over the world have carried out several types of studies on this topic in order to bring more awareness among people regarding the benefits exercise could bring in your life. Increasing physical activities are really helpful in reducing the risk of death caused by various risk factors like chronic diseases.Â
From the latest study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, it is verified that muscle strengthening exercises could reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases thus reducing the mortality rate in adults.
As per the latest World Health Organisation(WHO) recommendations, it is advised for adults to follow muscle strengthening exercises for more than 2 days per week so that it could help in reducing the rate of premature deaths. By a meta-analysis, it is proven that such exercises could also help in reducing the chances of kidney cancer.Â
From the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans(2nd edition), it is advised for adults to follow 2 types of physical activities weekly so that it could help them in muscle strengthening. Another study carried out on the same topic has proven that people who followed moderate exercise for 3 hours/week had a 27% reduction in mortality, while those who followed more vigorous exercise for more time had a 32% reduction in mortality.Â
The researchers of the study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine carried out a meta-analysis by collecting 16 valid studies that are published between 2012 – 2020. Most of the studies were done in the USA and included 3809 to 479 856 participants who were aged between 18 – 98.
Some of the studies included both men and women while others included either men or women and all these studies were mainly concentrated on muscle-strengthening activities like resistance, weight training, etc rather than heavy home duties like carrying heavy loads and gardening.Â
Among the collection of studies, seven of them were based on all-cause mortality, and it is verified that these exercises have reduced 15% of the risk. Three studies were based on the mortality from cardiovascular diseases and exercises have reduced 17% of the mortality risk.
In six studies, muscle-strengthening exercises have shown a 17% reduced risk of death from different types of cancers. Five studies were based on mortality from diabetes and there is a 17% reduction in mortality from exercise. Also, a 10% reduction in mortality from lung cancer has been achieved with moderate exercise.
According to Dr. Haruki Momma, the study author, their study was the first to systematically evaluate the relationship between muscle strengthening exercise and the mortality risk from diabetes.
Also, he says about some limitations they faced while evaluating the study and the most important among them is the lack of studies available for their meta-analysis. And secondly, most of the studies included in this cohort study assessed muscle-strengthening activities using questionnaires and interviews. Thirdly, since most of the studies were carried out in the US, they couldn’t generalize their outcomes. The fourth was that the meta-analysis included several observational studies which were potentially impacted by residual and anonymous factors. And finally, the data required for the study were collected from two databases namely Medline and Embrace thus believing that they would have missed some relevant studies.Â
From the study, the researchers have concluded that by moderate muscle-strengthening exercise people will be benefited from a reduced risk of mortality from non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular disease, different types of cancers, diabetes, etc. Also since they had very limited resources which mainly focused on a cohort population they couldn’t fully trust the results and to confirm whether this works on a diverse population they require resources from different diverse populations.
