We all know of the benefits of regular exercise to help us maintain a healthy balanced lifestyle and this week in the news has stated that “Two hours a week of exercise could offset the dangers of alcohol” but what does that mean and does this take into consideration the amount of units of alcohol we consume?
It was a hefty article but lets break it down a bit..
New research has suggested that spending two and a half hours a week doing mild exercise like golfing, walking etc. may off-set the deadly impact of drinking too much alcohol.
The scientists believe that drinking alcohol and exercising share a similar metabolic pathway in the body, which basically work in opposing directions (alcohol forces the liver to stop getting rid of fat, exercise does the reverse and uses fat up as fuel).
Here are some key points to the study –
-
Drinking – even within guidelines – raises the risk of early death by at least 16 per cent and cancer by 47 per cent.
-
150 minutes a week of moderate activity completely cancelled out the impact of death from all causes while lowering the cancer risk by 36 per cent. It also cut the chance of dying from hazardous drinking by more than half.
-
Physical activity may partially offset some of the harmful effects of drinking, particularly alcohol-attributable cancers.
-
Getting enough exercise does not mean you can stop worrying about the effect of drinking on your health.
-
Hazardous drinking usually raises the risk of early death by 20 per cent and cancer death by 52 per cent; moderate exercise lowered the risks to 9 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.
In a nut this is a great piece of research, which shows that reducing the effects of alcohol on our bodies can be partially achieved if we stick to the alcohol guidelines of 14 units per week for both men and woman and undertake regular exercise. It also shows us that regardless of how fit we are, if we consume alcohol we are having a negative effect on our health.
