5 Ways that Exercise Makes You Healthier
Exercise is good for the heart and blood vessels
Exercise produces forceful and frequent heart contractions which increase the blood pumping through the arteries. This results in subtle changes to the autonomic nervous system–the control center for the contraction & relaxation of our blood vessels–which leads to a healthy circulatory system. Exercise lowers the resting heart, lowers blood pressure, and triglyceride levels. High triglycerides are associated with heart disease and stroke.
Exercise strengthens bones
Exercise increases and maintains bone mass and reduces the risk of osteoporosis, making fracture risk much greater if you don’t exercise. Bones get stronger when they have to bear more weight than normal. The skeleton is smart – it knows how much force you are putting on it. Exercise triggers the mature bone cells (the osteocytes) to instruct the bone-building cells (the osteoblasts) to beef up bone formation.
Exercise effects Type-2 Diabetes
Exercise can prevent and even reverse Type-2 diabetes. It’s all about insulin resistance. A build-up of fats in the body can interfere with the glucose transportation system. If the body can’t absorb all the glucose in the blood, bad things can happen. Exercise can reverse the whole process. With vigorous exercise the muscles increase production of an enzyme called AMPK, which breaks down the fats that were interfering with the cells’ glucose transportation system.
Exercise can make you smarter
The effect of exercise on the brain is a relatively new discovery. It increases a chemical called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) which helps the brain cells to grow, survive and better communicate with each other. The more one exercises, the more positive brain changes are seen. People over 50 with memory problems improved their scores on cognitive tests by 20% after 6 months on an exercise regimen.
Exercise can affect weight loss
Vigorous exercise suppresses a key hunger hormone, called ghrelin, for up to 30 minutes after a workout, and increases an appetite-suppressing hormone, called peptide YY, for 3 hours after exercise. If your exercise includes building muscle mass, your body, in effect, becomes a fat-burning-machine. One pound of fat burns 2 calories a day, one pound of muscle burns 350 calories a day.
