Study Proves Exercise Staves Off Bad Cholesterol
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I’ve been in an exercise black hole since January 29th – the day I hurt my elbow shoveling. Since I had tennis elbow surgery 10 years ago, I knew this time to immediately stop playing tennis and quit spin to let my elbow heal. Suddenly it was 4 months later and I’ve gained weight and am out of the regular exercise habit.
YES, I could have done some other exercise. YES, I have both a treadmill and an elliptical in my home. NO, I didn’t use them and instead wallowed in my sadness that I’d reinjured my elbow.
And YES, I regret my sloth as I gained 5 pounds in four short months.
My elbow is still not 100% but now I’m on the slow path to regaining cardio fitness – and hopefully losing the weight that irks me daily as my jeans don’t fit.
And while exercise is harder than ever for me (getting old really bites: various body parts scream in protest when pushed), the good news is that a recent study of 11,000+ men proves that exercise may delay age-related high cholesterol levels.
An article entitled,The Effect of Cardiorespiratory Fitness on Age-Related Lipids and Lipoproteins was published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, on May 11, 2015. While I can’t read the actual article as it costs $35 to purchase (!) I’m writing based on several reputable sources who reported on this study.
Researchers used data from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study in Dallas, Texas, collected from more than 11,000 men between 1970 and 2006 to assess total cholesterol, LDL (bad) cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol and triglycerides.
As Lisa Rapaport of Reuters reported in her article, Men Who Exercise May Delay Age-Related High Cholesterol, in the study, “researchers followed thousands of men over several decades, periodically drawing blood to test their cholesterol and then making them run on treadmills to measure their cardiorespiratory fitness. Men who could run longer and faster – signs that their bodies more easily deliver oxygen to muscles – also had lower cholesterol.”
“The better men did on fitness tests, the more likely they were to have lower total cholesterol, as well as lower levels of what’s known as low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the bad kind of cholesterol that builds up in blood vessels and can lead to atherosclerosis, blood clots and heart attacks.
Fitter men also had higher levels of so-called high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the good cholesterol that helps purge the bloodstream of LDL.
Men with higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels had better cholesterol profiles than less fit men from their early 20s until at least their early 60s, though the difference diminished with older age.
At the same time, men with lower fitness levels reached abnormal cholesterol levels before age 40.”
Said differently, unfit men were at risk of developing high cholesterol in their early 30s, but those with better fitness levels did not see it rise until their mid-40s, around 15 years later.
Dr. Gregg Fonarow, professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, was widely quoted about this article online: “Exercise is a vital component of achieving lifelong cardiovascular health. Regular physical activity and maintaining physical fitness has been shown to be associated with a lower risk of [heart attack], stroke, and premature cardiovascular death.”
How much exercise is needed? According to study co-author Dr. Xuemei Sui, an Assistant professor at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina, to achieve the fitness levels necessary to ward off age-related high cholesterol, men should get 150 minutes a week of moderate activity (gardening, dancing, brisk walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous activity (jogging, running, swimming, cycling).
That’s 30 minutes of aerobic activity (a brisk walk!) five days a week, or 3-4 runs a week (or for me: tennis or spin 2-3 times a week).
Of course this study was done just with men. Actually, healthy white men. Of course that is incredibly frustrating. But I am going to go out on a limb and assume the same healthy benefits may confer on men and women in general.
And hope that getting back to the regular/daily exercise that will make my jeans fit again will also keep bad cholesterol at bay.
