US Doctors Urge Wider Use Of Cholesterol Drugs

[happyslug]

61. The problem is how to integrate exercise with most people's life styles

Last edited Sun Nov 17, 2013, 12:46 PM - Edit history (1)

In the days of olde, before we learned we needed Statins, people use to do PHYSICAL work 6-8 hours a day. That is the level of exercise your body NEEDS. Today most people are no where near that level of exercise.

This difference can be seen in the The National Associations of Letter Carriers (NALC) health insurance policy. Do to the increased level of health of Carriers because the Carriers are walking 6-8 hours a day, the NALC Health program was expanded to include grandchildren who live with grandparents (providing the parents of the child does not live with the Carrier). I have NEVER seen that in any other health insurance plan. The reason for this difference is because the NALC could do the change given the much lower level of health problems of their members who walk their routes 6-8 hours a day (They drive to the routes and drive from block to block, but they also walk those blocks).

You do not see that level of exercise in most other jobs today (and where you do similar low rates come into play). Even the police tend to drive cars NOT walk a beat. Most truck drivers are NOT required to load or unload their trucks (Most do help loading and unloading the truck, but such assistance is NOT what you are paying for when you hire a truck). Given this lack of loading and unloading most truck driving is minimal exercise. Most of the people who unload trucks tend to do so only for 1-2 hours a day, and most of the people who load them tend to use forklifts (I know they are exceptions to this rule, thus my use of the word "Most&quot .

Side note: The above comment on truck driving is for commercial trucks, i.e. tractor trailers. Local delivery trucks drivers do load and unload their trucks. More physical work then over the road truck drivers and for that reason tend to be healthier.

We also drive to and from work. Now they has been a boom in people biking to work, but biking is still lower then walking to work and both COMBINED are still in single digits (and we do not see most people who walk to work for they walk on sidewalks and thus "Commute" from a house in the inner city and to a job in the inner city).

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/10/us-cities-where-fewest-commuters-get-work-car/7390/
http://www.census.gov/hhes/commuting/files/2009/means_of_transportation.pdf

Thus compared to out Great Grandparents of the WWII and prior generation, we do less outside. This reduction in physical work and put our body under the less pressure then bodies of our ancestors were under. Today, we wake up, get in the car, go to work, work by being in one place most of the time (this can be an office or behind a counter), drive back home, eat and go to sleep.

Compared that to a farmer of olde (not of today, even most farmers today use a lot of equipment that only requires them to sit), the farmer woke up, ate then went to the field and did 6 to 8 hours of labor including moving around. That farmer WALKED everywhere he or she had to go. Once they arrived where they were going, they did a quick transaction OR some long term work that required moving around. The closest we get to this today is if you are a retail worker in a store and your job is loading the shelves with heavy can goods all day long. In the days of the Horse, farmers walked behind the Horse when plowing, not as today's farmers who tend to ride in the tractor. This is more true of the larger commercial farms then smaller farms.

Think about it, do you drive to work?, your work?, your drive home?, near anywhere what people did just 60 years ago? (Most people in urban areas prior to WWII, WALKED to work, driving to work is a post WWII movement for most people, you had some people driving to work prior to WWII, but most people did not). People would walk up to an hour to get to work, and most work required manual labor, thus constant movement for eight hours. I do not mean movement of your hands and arms while you work a cash register or a computer, I mean actual physical Labor. No heavy lifting, but constant movement not only of your arms but your legs and the rest of your body. Some jobs required heavy labor, but most even in the 1920s and 1930s did not.

The stay at home mothers were also active, the Automatic Washer was invented in 1948, but took another 20 years before it became the washer used in most households. The older winger washers required a lot of physical labor on the operator to clean the clothes (And did a better job cleaning clothes, thus wives of farmers, miners and steel workers kept using them long after everyone else was using Automatic Washers).'

Furthermore, the "Housewife" of historical fame only really existed in the 1950s, it was NOT the norm after the 1960s and was NOT the norm prior to WWII, for most women worked. Now, for those women who did NOT work outside the home, they had to do a lot of running around for the family (and their husband). In the days before cars (i.e. before the 1950s) that meant walking and if she purchased anything lugging it home. When most people where in the farm, women worked. The family's children may be all around her, but she worked both inside the house and outside the house on the farm, only part of that work was to watch the children.

The above is mentioned for one of the problems we have today is the lack of exercise. You can NOT make exercise a separate activity in your life, for when most people do so, it is the activity that is cut out when it comes in conflict with any other activity. Thus the best way to get exercise is the way our ancestors did, by integrating exercise with the rest of our activities. Walk or ride a bike to work for example (Which may require people to move, for most people today live to far from their work to walk or bike to work) is the best way to integrate exercise into the rest of your daily activities. Walk to another office to talk to someone, instead of using the phone. Opt to do something manually instead of by a machine, just for the exercise (Some employers will not like this, they want the productivity of the machine over the manual method, but in some cases the difference is minor).

The problem with high cholesterol can be tied in with lack of exercise then any other single factor (including diet). Our body is designed to do PHYSICAL LABOR, not type on a keyboard. Our brain is tuned to adjust our thinking to how our body is acting and reacting to what we our doing with our bodies. Our body ASSUMES we will be doing a lot of heavy labor EVERY DAY and is geared to that level of usage and fluid flows. Cholesterol is a quick source of energy when we need it, thus our body makes it SO THE BODY CAN USE IT WHEN NEEDED. We have to use our body so its does use that cholesterol and that requires us to do more the a couple hours of exercise a day.