Dr. Mitch : Excercise decreases heart risk for women!

Your two-minute checkup with Dr. Mitch Schulman brought to you by board-certified hand surgeon, Dr. Daniel Durand, for carpal tunnel syndrome. Book a consultation now at montrealhandsurgery.com. 753, Dr. Schulman, how are you this morning?

Fine. Thank you. I hope everyone had a lovely day yesterday. Absolutely. Right back at you. And this morning, we're going to talk about, I guess it's a study about how small bursts of exercise or activity can reduce the risk of heart issues with women. So this is commonly a time that people will make resolutions, right? Yeah. Start of the new year. I'm going to do things. I'm going to be a better person. I'm going to be a healthier person. Yadda yadda yadda. Anyway,

One of the resolutions people often make is I'm going to be more fit. Okay. The thing is when they say that what they're normally thinking is, Oh my God, I've got to join a gym or I've got up and all those things are good if you want to. But what this study in the new in the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed was that even just increasing the amount of activity in a small way can make a significant difference, at least in this study in women. I don't understand why it only seemed to apply to women.

That's one of the interesting aspects of this study, but I don't think if you were actually to look at the literature in general that I think you could actually say this would benefit all people. And they basically found that sedentary women who did as little as one to three minutes of what they call vigorous intensity specific or short exercise every day showed a dramatic decrease in the risk of developing a heart attack or a stroke or any other significant cardiovascular illness.

And they're talking about things like running after the bus or going up the stairs. Now, if you're truly a couch potato, I would be careful how you do this. I wouldn't rush out quickly right now. And say, I'm going to do a bunch of stairs right now. I would take it easy to it gradually, maybe be checked out by your doctor. But it does show you that you can see benefits from just small amounts of activity. And this reinforces something that's been a common theme, I think, throughout 2024.

Being sedentary is the biggest danger to your health, and so if you can get up during the day and move around during the day and just do things during the day, and if during this you can also do short bursts of more vigorous activity in the proper season gardening, in the less proper season, you know, cleaning up the house. People forget, I'm sure they don't, but I will say that.

uh... how much exercise there is in vacuuming or vigorously loading the dishwasher uh... but that's the idea the idea is don't give up do even small bits of activity are worth doing just do it carefully do it slowly if you're truly a couch potato

and i think it's an achievable uh... new year's resolution micha couple points of what one of the good things about the smartwatches and fit this is that they'll remind you to get off off your butt you know like you okay you haven't been active now in the last hour maybe maybe get up and take a walk about that the fact that i need my watch to tell me to do this or my phone

is a basic statement of not-good stuff. But yeah, you're right. And again, I think you highlight, without being silly for a second, I think you highlight a key point. You don't have to do this alone. You can do this with your friends or with your coworkers or with your family. And you can use any of the smart devices that you have, whether it's your phone or your watch. A lot of these things can be programmed to remind you to be active on a regular basis

I think many people find them very helpful.

to get them, you know, off their butt and moving. And that's the key message. You got to get off your butt. Yeah, when it comes to these short bursts of activity, what we do, Mitch, because we watch dogs, we always have dogs in the house. When we walk the dogs, every now and then we'll just run with them for like a block, you know, just to get the heart pumping. And they don't turn around and say, what is wrong with you? Oh, they want to run too. And a lot of times we take the Metro a lot downtown, Mitch, from Bill Sandler, how we park the car and we take the Metro. And what we always do is we avoid the escalator and we just, you know,

vigorously, take the stairs up. Yeah. If you can't, I mean, I know a lot of people have mobility issues and other things. I want them to be careful. And so you do what you can within your limits. But yeah, you've just highlighted two great ways of getting more activity, not just walking the dog, but maybe give the dog a little bit more of an exercise bit the same for you. And the same thing as you're commuting, as you're going into work. You know, we've talked about, you know, parking the car a little bit further away from where you need to be. So you walk a little bit further.

but do be careful the sidewalks can be slippery and i see i've seen a lot of people over the last couple of days who slipped and fallen and hurt themselves just be careful that's the other comment yet run with the dogs when that when the footing is good and solid that's right or have them take you can carry you dr mitch thanks as always a pleasure of a great day dr mitch showman