Blog
Exercise can cancel out the booze, says study
follow us on twitter: @GoAfricaNetwork , @DocSamuelJones
CNN
(CNN)You might want to chase that next beer with a little exercise. Exercising the recommended amount “cancels out” the higher risk of cancer death brought about by drinking, a new study revealed. Similarly, physical activity lessened any greater risk of death resulting from any cause due to alcohol.
By Susan Scutti, CNN
With its “very high standing” in Western culture, “alcohol will continue to be abused despite the damage it causes to the health of individuals and society in general,” said Dr. Emmanuel Stamatakis, senior author of the study, which appeared today in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s medical school. Yet, policies to regulate consumption have never worked well, explained Stamatakis. Since people continue to drink, this realistic researcher and his colleagues decided to see whether the harms of drinking might be offset by the benefits of exercising.
Observation over time
Stamatakis and his colleagues gathered data from health surveys conducted in England and Scotland. Then the researchers grouped the study participants — 36,370 people, all 40 years of age or older — into three categories: people who are not very active, those who do a moderate amount of exercising, and those who do the most. Next, the research team looked at alcohol use among the participants.
Calculating 5,735 total deaths over an average follow-up period of nearly 10 years per person, and crunching the numbers, the researchers discovered that compared with lifelong abstinence from alcohol, drinking at hazardous levels was linked to a heightened risk of death from all causes. Hazardous drinking is 8 to 20 US standard drinks for women and 21 to 49 for men, as defined by the researchers.
And, the more alcohol units drunk each week, the greater the risk of death from cancer — even when a person drank less than the recommended maximum per week. The recommended weekly maximum, as defined, is 8 standard drinks for women and 12 for men.
However, all the numbers changed when Stamatakis and his colleagues factored exercise into their equations.
Specifically, they looked at the impact of the recommended amount of weekly exercise for adults, which is 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity. That includes brisk walking, swimming and mowing the lawn, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. HHS also advises strength training for all major muscle groups at least twice a week.
Exercising the recommended amount “appeared to wipe off completely” the inflated risk of cancer death resulting from alcohol, said Stamatakis. Similar physical activity also offset the increased risk of all-cause mortality linked to drinking. Exercising more provided slightly better results.
One thing exercise did not moderate, though, was death risk among those who drank at harmful levels — “over 20 US standard drinks per week for women and over 28 US standard drinks for men,” said Stamatakis.
The results also showed that occasional drinking — drinking alcohol sometimes but not every week — was associated with a reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease among physically active people.
“I would have expected that the moderating effect of physical activity would be more pronounced for cardiovascular disease than for cancer mortality risk,” noted Stamatakis.
read more at CNN