It's hard sometimes to stay committed to being fit and healthy. Work gets busy, family responsibilities take time, you aren't seeing improvements.
But avoiding conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, both more common in less active individuals, is just as important as losing a few kilograms of body fat.
Often the biggest benefits come later, and in many cases, years later.
A recent study has highlighted the importance of avoiding high blood pressure and diabetes, and again reinforces why staying fit during those busy mid-life years is critical to your future health.
The study reported that people who develop diabetes and high blood pressure in middle age (defined as age 40 to 64) are more likely to have brain cell loss and other damage to the brain, as well as problems with memory and thinking skills, than people who never have diabetes or high blood pressure or who develop it in old age.
In this study, the thinking and memory skills of 1,437 people with an average age of 80 were evaluated. The participants had either no thinking or memory problems or mild memory and thinking problems called mild cognitive impairment. They then had brain scans to look for markers of brain damage that can be a precursor to dementia. Participants' medical records were reviewed to determine whether they had been diagnosed with diabetes or high blood pressure in middle age or later.
Compared to people who did not have diabetes, people who developed diabetes in middle age had smaller total brain volume and were twice as likely to have thinking and memory problems.
Compared to people who did not have high blood pressure, people who developed high blood pressure in middle age were twice as likely to have areas of brain damage.
The researchers concluded that findings suggest that the effects of these diseases on the brain take decades to develop and show up as brain damage and lead to symptoms that affect their memory and other thinking skills. In particular, diabetes has adverse effects regardless of the age at which diabetes develops.
What does it mean?
These results reinforce the importance of avoiding health conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Although they may not affect you significantly now, the long term consequences can be much more significant and debilitating.
The results also highlight the fact that the major benefits of staying fit is not whether you lose a few kilograms or look better, but that what is happening on the inside is working as it should.
You don't need to do a lot of exercise or eat like a rabbit to protect yourself from high blood pressure and diabetes, but you do have to be active and to have a reasonable level of fitness.
Once you have attained an acceptable level of fitness for health, with the right exercise program, you can maintain that in 30 minutes a day.
Not a big investment considering the years of productive life that could be lost in the future.
Article Author: David Beard, Calico's Exercise Physiologist & Healthy Aging Expert