HEART DISEASE... EXERCISE VS DRUGS

We are huge fans of "The Brits" when it comes to organizing health data...so when the British Medical Journal decided to review the results of a recent study that looked more deeply into the merits of exercise vs drugs in preventing death from heart disease and stroke it got our attention. After looking at hundreds of trials involving nearly 340,000 patients the study concluded Physical Activity can be as effective as some heart drugs in reducing death rates and actually outperformed drugs for stroke...Dr Peter Coleman of the Stroke Association said, "Moderate physical activity can reduce the risk of stroke by up to 27%.

Although all researchers say the results of the study require further examination it's hard to ignore the fact that scientists at the London School of Economics, Harvard Medical School and the Stanford School of Medicine reviewed 305 trials in producing their analysis. According to BBC NEWS these trials looked at managing conditions such as existing heart disease, stroke rehabilitation, heart failure and pre-diabetes and when they studied the data as a whole they found exercise and drugs were comparable in terms of death rates.

Nobody advocated stopping taking the Meds provided by your Doctor, but they did mention the increase in the use of Drugs is not matched by an increase in Physical Activity. We would add that the increased death rate from "Poison" in the United States, which is mostly due to prescribed drugs, is a sign there may be a better way. It makes no sense for "Poison" to be the leading cause of death in the US between ages 35 and 44...we think the evidence is clear this study is on the right track. It's time to get moving! Tom LeDuc