The study utilizes humans’ ape cousins to compare the relevance.
with substantially less activity than most humans. This advocates that
and simultaneously be more physically active.
Physical Activity and Old age
It is well-known that physical inactivity leads to several harms to health such as excess fat storage, improper DNA repair processes, diabetes, cancer, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis, depression, and many more.
Data states that modern-day hunter-gathers average about 135 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day. That is nearly 6 to 10 times more than a typical American.
This might explain why hunter-gathers who survive childhood tend to live about seven decades. However, a minimum of 10 or 20 minutes of physical activity per day is sufficient for an average human to lower the risk of premature death.
“The key take-home point is that because we evolved to be active throughout our lives, our bodies need physical activity to age well. In the past, daily physical activity was necessary in order to survive, but today we have to choose to exercise, that is do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health and fitness,” says Lieberman.
Source: Medindia
