The review mentioned in the post didn’t, although I’ve only looked at 2 studies on the dose-response relationship.
Edit: Actually, the review mentioned in the post didn’t seem to really test the shape of the dose-response relationship, I think they just assumed mortality risk had an inverse linear relationship with the natural log with the amount of exercise.
Thanks for the response, I think you may be right. Can you give me the links to the studies that test higher caloric expenditure? Do you know if one can exercise too much?
“Sufficient total activity” doesn’t necessarily mean optimal total activity or when diminishing return begins. The Eurobarometer study isn’t free, so I can’t tell exactly what it means by “sufficient total activity.” What are your thoughts on this?
Do you know of any reviews about the “dose-response relationship” of exercise and mortality other than the 4 we’ve mentioned?
Ok. Do you know of any evidence that mortality rates increase after any amount of exercise? I suppose reverse causality would make it very hard to tell, but intuitively an 80-year old trying to exercise 10 hours per day seems unhealthy.
Another question: Do you know if aerobic and anaerobic exercise have different effects on mortality? I recall hearing (from a potentially unreliable source) that aerobic exercise was healthier, but I haven’t managed to find any scientific literature comparing them. Also, could one hit diminishing returns in anaerobic exercise without hitting hitting diminishing returns in aerobic? Again, I haven’t found an literature on this.
I’ll try to find the study evidencing increased CVD in long distance runners. I appreciate the response.
The site seems sketchy, as the US Food and Drug Administration warned the site to stop making illegal claims, and many claims on the website go against mainstream medicine.
All the links are broken. Is there any way I can see the entries?
Thanks. Any idea why the links are broken in the first place? It seems odd that they wouldn’t maintain a link for something they paid thousands of dollars in prize $ to get.
Mayo Clinic recently published proceedings00638-7/pdf) suggesting that 5 hrs/week of vigorous exercise was the upper limit for safe exercise. They didn’t state their methodology for finding studies on the topic, but I don’t see any reason for Mayo Clinic to be biased about it.
They also discussed a meta-analysis00519-9/pdf) that suggested that elite athletes (who presumably exercise a ton) were much healthier than the general population. The proceedings explained that the meta-analysis had many methodological limitations, such as elite athletes being physically gifted, practicing other healthy habits, and having high socioeconomic status.
What do you think of this all?
Sorry about the broken links. Anyways, IIRC, The Mayo Clinic proceedings only recommend limiting vigorous exercise. Do you think one could still get more health benefits by exercising non-vigorously? i.e. They recommend limiting vigorous exercise to ⇐ ~50 MET/wk (assuming the exercise burns 10 MET/hr). Do you think one would get additional health benefits for exercising moderately for, say, 100 MET/wk?
I suggest you read this article, which suggests that blood donation doesn’t decrease mortality.
What do you (or anyone else) think of it?
Your post also mentioned that males tend to have iron overload. I find this to be suspect, as if males tended to have iron overload, the study would have probably found that blood donation decreases mortality.
That said, for those who do have iron overload, blood donation likely does fix that.
If you don’t know how prevalent iron overload is, then you can’t know that men tend to have it, so I suggest editing you comment to say “some men have iron overload” instead of “men tend to have iron overload.”
I think you may have misread the article. According your link, the American Cancer Society states that, “Men with risk factors, such as an undescended testicle, previous testicular cancer, or a family member who has had this cancer should seriously think about monthly self-exams. If you have risk factors, talk it over with a doctor. Each man has to decide for himself whether to examine his testicles each month.” It also said it, “does not have a recommendation about regular testicular self-exams for all men.” Perhaps you missed the “all.”
I don’t see why discussing the general population causes “all” to mean “the general population.” That said, I understand what you mean, so arguing further seems rather petty.
I’m having trouble posting an article, so any help would be appreciated. I’ve tried to make a discussion post, and whenever I click “submit,” it says, “submitting...” for a few seconds. However, the thread never appears in the discussion section. Also, when I try to close out of the submit article page, it says, “you’ve made changes to the article, but haven’t submitted it.” Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? My only idea is that the target and class of hyperlinks aren’t set, or that the article’s too long; it’s 27 pages.
Thanks. It works now. Turns out the error was with the hyperlinks in my table of contents.
One review found the relationship between physical activity and mortality to be linear. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this review found such a relationship while others didn’t?