BMJ Opinion: Scarlett McNally: Exercise is the miracle cure

Andy

Andy

Senior Member (Voting rights)
The human, workforce, and financial costs of preventable ill-health represent a ticking time bomb for the UK economy. While increased life expectancy is good news, projections show that the average adult will, in the future, need 10 years of social care. Decision makers may not grasp the true scale of this challenge, since today’s social care costs have been obscured by 1980s property windfalls. Future generations—and future governments—will not have this cushion.

As with so much else in the NHS, the key to addressing this impending crisis lies in prevention over cure. Yet no one really talks about preventing the need for social care at source, rather than accepting spiralling quality of life and a soaring bill for the Exchequer.

Older people who become, or remain physically active, are least likely to need social care, but 47% of older people do no exercise at all.

Getting older and becoming frail are two different things; frailty can usually be prevented with exercise. And bucking this trend does not necessarily mean packing pensioners off to pump iron at the gym. Moving from no activity to just a little activity—walking briskly every day to the shop, rather than driving, for example—has been shown to yield the single greatest gain in health and wellbeing.
Click to expand...
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/01/30/scarlett-mcnally-exercise-is-the-miracle-cure/
 
She is right for a lot of people, but ignorant about others like us. Elderly friends are being encouraged to exercise and finding it helps them avoid falls etc. All good. But not for everyone.
We should harness the 1.6 million NHS workers, 1.4 million workers in the care sector, and 400,000 exercise professionals to spread a clear and consistent message: everyone should find some exercise they can do.
Click to expand...
I've had years of GP's telling me to get more exercise, and have sacked one carer who, while helping me shower, told me I should exercise myself to health, and refused to understand it was bad advice. My nice kind GP who does her best to be understanding, still talks about deconditioning, and asks couldn't I try to do a bit more.

It's so ingrained in me that I still have that voice in my head most days that tells me my undoubted deconditioning now after so many years could be reversed if I just tried to do some exercises. I would love to find a way to strengthen my legs - I'm sure I'll have another fall sometime. But I can't see how I can without making my ME worse. I am already active up to my limit just doing essential living stuff.
 
I am desperate to exercise. I envy my aromatherapist who goes to the gym every day despite being 66.

If the BPS crew had not hijacked ME research and understanding in 1985 I might be active too. And they have the brass nerve to then blame me for being sedentary when their medical neglect let me deteriorate to a wheelchair 30 years ago and now having to lie down most of the time :mad:
 
A good rule of thumb when someone promotes a miracle cure is to ignore the person completely because there is no such thing as a miracle cure.

Looking back at times when most people used to do vigorous exercise as part of their everyday job, health outcomes were definitely not very good. Nothing is ever so simple.
 
Moving from no activity to just a little activity—walking briskly every day to the shop, rather than driving, for example—has been shown to yield the single greatest gain in health and wellbeing

Walking two hours per week seems to be enough.

120 min per week is that not 17 min a day?

Do mild effected not walk 17 min per day?
 
Last edited:
disability prevents you from doing enough actual exercise to be of benefit .in most cases people become disabled after previously being fit and well . many professions today though have sedentary jobs so getting professionals with those kind of jobs to do more physical activities could be of benefit to their long term health but and there is always a but many people actually become disabled by their fitness regimes how many here know people who have needed hip replacement after decades of jogging operations on tendons etc . you can not treat every human being the same this is the worst assumption of so called modern medicine . I am worn out just typing this so does this count as exercise.
 
lansbergen said:
Moving from no activity to just a little activity—walking briskly every day to the shop, rather than driving, for example—has been shown to yield the single greatest gain in health and wellbeing

120 min per week is that not 17 min a day?
Click to expand...

Read carefully, note the word "briskly". Simply walking a bit more each day does basically nothing for your health or fitness.
 
While moderately affected by ME - by evening I had to be helped upstairs, had episodes of paralysis, inability to speak and blindness - I walked briskly for at least 50 minutes everyday taking kids to school and nursery, shopping, going to the park, as well as housework and gardening. I was never sedentary, and much fitter than most office workers.
 
Experts should be held accountable for their publicly given advice. They'd be far less free with it.

I have two close relatives who had hip replacements over a decade apart. Patient 1 an early 40s non smoker and patient 2 a mid 30s smoker. Patient 1 had quite a few days rest whereas Patient 2 was up and out of bed and moving around asap. The difference in recovery between the two was remarkable. So I can see how an orthopaedic surgeon would have this idea about exercise being a panacea.

However they should apply caveats loud and clear. Exercise needs to be appropriate to the individual. For example Patient 2 was warned not to cycle or do the breast stroke when swimming. That was a couple of decades ago and the advice may have changed since. See, a caveat.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom