Exercise Does Not Make Heart Grow Younger

Not as irrational as it seems, with some important elucidating points.

This is the way it is, "Health is a function of participation. Participation is a function of fitness. (tm)"

There is no direct one-to-one relationship between fitness and health.

This is despite the propaganda of the sick care, diet and fitness industries, the gurus and the rest of them.

It is best to be fit so you can enjoy your life more fully through greater participation.

At the very least you will have a better life.

Perhaps you will buy more time and it appears likely that you will decrease your chances of getting some pretty bad illnesses.

But the real goal of fitness, the true goal of fitness, the fitness goal to which the sick care industry and the diet/fitness guru predators cannot afford to admit, is a better life.

That is a much higher goal than all of sick care can ever and will ever achieve.

If you are going to do the fitness thing, i.e., manage your weight and the relative amounts of fat and lean in your body, then you have to do it smartly.

"Research shows that exercise:

- does not reverse ageing
- may make old hearts less stable
- could actually increase chances of arrhythmia (change in heartbeat)
- does bring protection against heart attacks, but this protection is gained and lost rapidly. "

so

" The summary messages from the work presented are therefore:

1. Don't expect exercise to make the old young again
2. Exercise in the elderly is not necessarily always good for the heart
3. It's never too late to start regular exercise since the heart rapidly adapts becoming indistinguishable in many measures from the heart of someone who has engaged in lifelong exercise
4. Exercise can protect against damage from a heart attack, but this protection is gained rapidly and lost rapidly."

Fitness allows you to make the most of what you have. Anything else is gravy.

Just be intelligent about how you do it.

And, oh yeah, eschew all the crap spouted by the anti-aging medicine nut cases (e.g., here and here) and the "longevity expert" pretenders (e.g., here).