Exercise Begins at 40

• Monday August 28, 2006 in: Diet and Exercise Tag(s):

  Technorati Tags: exercise, health

  For a lot of people, exercise is composed mainly of walking to the mailbox and back to their couches. Many have even gone through life doing a lot less physical activity than that. And by the time they reach that magic age of 40, they probably wouldn't leave their couches anymore, probably asking rhetorically, "What for? I'm 40 and closer to dying anyway."

  Stick to that mentality and it's a certainty you'll be a lot closer to your date with the Reaper. But if you get that butt off that couch and start working out, even if you're 40 above, you can cut your risk of coronary heart disease and therefore live longer. At least that's what the German researchers featured in this United Press International report say.

  Researchers at The German Centre for Research on Aging at the University of Heidelberg studied 312 adults between the ages of 40 and 68 who had confirmed coronary artery disease and 479 volunteers matched for age and sex.

  Each participant was interviewed about their level of physical activity in early adulthood -- from age 20 to 39, and in late adulthood -- past the age of 40.

  Those who had been active all their lives were around 60 percent less likely to be diagnosed with coronary heart disease, but those who became very physically active after the age of 40 were around 55 percent less likely to be diagnosed with heart disease than those who had embraced inactivity all their lives, according to the study in Heart. That means it's never too late to start exercising. And here's another benefit of exercising during middle age: diet and exercise may fend off dementia. According to the CBS News report, that is what researchers at the ongoing10th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders are saying.