Exercise for the Aging and the Aged
Fifteen month old Golu (my god grandson) on a walk in, Nainital Dist. My daily newspaper – the Times of India – that is truly daily here in India, unlike when I lived in Canada and the daily newspaper took a holiday every Sunday, as any sensible human institution should, has a very sensible weekly page on health issues that I read with much interest. Today’s page reported the effects of exercise on longevity from a recent collaborative study between the Brigham and Women’s hospital and the National Cancer Institute in Washington. I presume Brigham is a man and therefore the study applies to men just as well as women although I fail to understand why the Brigham and Women’s hospital has excluded all men except Brigham, from its nomenclature at least, if not from its corridors. The study reported that just 75 minutes of brisk walking per week resulted in an increase of life expectancy by 1.8 years whereas 450 minutes of brisk walking was associated with a gain of 4.5 years.