Exercise most effective ‘medicine’ for chronic disease

Local professor of exercise science warns that fitness, not fatness, needs to become the focus in the fight to prevent and manage chronic disease, the leading cause of death in the Australia and the developed world.

ECU Joondalup Head of School of Exercise, Biomedical and Health Sciences Professor Robert Newton is calling for the prioritisation of fitness over the anti-obesity message.

“Obesity is just a symptom of an underlying disease—sedentary lifestyle,” Prof Newton says.

“It is low fitness which is killing us, not being overweight.”

In a talk given at the Sports Medicine Australia conference held in Fremantle earlier this month, Prof Newton cited the current battle against obesity as ineffective in curbing rising rates of chronic disease as well as the associated costs.

“Exercise is the most effective medicine for the prevention and management of chronic disease, a problem that’s responsible for around 80 per cent of our healthcare expenditure,” Prof Newton says.

“Cardiorespiratory fitness is the strongest predictor of morbidity and mortality,”

“The risk of mortality of someone who is normal weight but unfit is about 3 times higher than the mortality risk of someone who is obese but fit.”

As well as acting to prevent the development of chronic disease, large-scale studies show prescribed exercise can produce the same medical outcomes as leading pharmaceutical agents in the treatment of diseases including Type 2 diabetes and breast cancer.

“A prescribed exercise campaign produces the same increase in breast cancer survival rates as the leading chemotherapy agent, without the nasty side-effects,” Prof Newton says.

“Some oncologists in Perth insist that their patients follow a prescribed exercise programme to help manage their cancer.”

Earlier this year, Australia saw the launch of the Exercise is Medicine® initiative, a program designed to make physical activity and exercise part of our standard disease prevention and treatment model.

“The purpose is to educate allied health and medical practitioners that enquiring about their patient’s level of physical activity should be the first port of call,” Prof Newton says.

“Doctors are also encouraged to refer the patient for exercise treatment services should their physical activity levels fall below the minimum guidelines.”

“Exercise is the most effective medicine for the management of chronic disease, and the best part is that we can all benefit from it for free,” Prof Newton says.

By Louisa Frew

(Source: ScienceNetwork WA)

More information

For more information on fitness and exercise, including stretches, types of exercise, exercise recovery and exercise with health conditions, as well as some useful videos, see Fitness and Exercise.