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12/10/2015

Develop a Program of Activity to Improve Your Heart and Lung Fitness

A physiological process in the body called autophagy deals with the destruction of cells. It's important for balancing sources of energy and in response to nutrient stress and is considered normal in the human body. It is a process of breaking down old cells to use their molecules for making new cells. As cells are weakened, they go into autophagosomes, cup-shaped double membranes with enzymes to break down the cell contents.

One of the gravest complications of Type 2 diabetes is heart disease. In diabetes, heart cells are lost and replaced with fiber. A team of scientists at the University of Otago in New Zealand compared heart autophagy in people with and without Type 2 diabetes, to learn whether too much autophagy could cause heart damage for people with diabetes.

Their study, reported on in the International Journal of Cardiology in August 2015, looked at pieces of the heart taken from different surgical patients having coronary artery bypass grafts. The diabetic hearts showed much more autophagy and more autophagosomes than did non-diabetic hearts. This evidence helped researchers to conclude autophagy does damage the heart of diabetics. New treatments for diabetic heart conditions could come from this discovery.

Heart and lung fitness is also a risk factor. We know heart disease is a complication of Type 2 diabetes, but only recently has it been found reduced heart and lung fitness is also a risk factor for this form of diabetes. Researchers at the University of Leicester and various other research centers in the UK and Finland conducted a 23-year study of 2520 Finnish men and went on to analyse similar research as if it were all one large study. Their work was reported on in the medical journal Atherosclerosis in September 2015.

Participants performed maximal exercise while the amount of oxygen they breathed in was measured - this is the standard way of measuring heart and lung, or cardiovascular fitness. Regardless of weight, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, or family history, participants with the best cardiovascular fitness had the lowest risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

When the results of eight other studies that included almost 93,000 participants were pooled, the results were similar. These results led to the conclusion there is a link between poor fitness levels and Type 2 diabetes.

"Someone," said once they cut exercise trainers out of their life, and they had felt better ever since. But physical activity need not be tiresome...

find a hiking trail with beautiful scenery and take a brisk walk, or
turn on some fast music and dance to your heart's content.
What other physical activities you know you like to do can you include in your life? Physical activity strenghtens the cardiovascular system - even a moderate amount has a correlation with longevity.
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