Scientific articles

People that train regularly have lower rates of disability and an average of seven years more of life expectancy than their sedentary peers. However, there is an upper safety limit with regard to the amount of endurance training, over which the harmful effects of it could outweigh the benefits. Strenuous endurance training during a long period of time can produce fibrosis of the myocardial tissue which could cause supra and infra ventricular arrhythmia, in addition to calcifications in the coronaries and stiffness of the walls of the large arteries. The authors of this article suggest the implementation of the ‘calcium score’ in persons over 50 who have already trained and participated in endurance sports such as marathons, triathlons, cycling, etc. as a screening measure. At Neolife, we are pioneers in the implementation of the ‘calcium score’ in the early diagnosis and prevention of cardiovascular disease.

It is estimated that at least 20% of the adult population suffers a major depressive episode throughout their lives and its incidence is double in women than in men. It is necessary to distinguish between depressive mood state and clinical depression. The first one is characterised by a feeling of sadness, dullness and unhappiness, while clinical depression is a psychiatric disorder where besides showing a depressive mood at least four of the following symptoms are recognised; weight loss, sleep disorder, psychomotor agitation or, on the contrary, a state of lethargy, deep tiredness and energy loss, feelings of guilt, low self-confidence, difficulty thinking and/or concentrating and thoughts related with death and even with suicide. Classical treatment for depression is pharmacotherapy with tricyclic antidepressants, benzodiazepines or combinations of both. However, many patients do not respond to these treatments or have undesired side effects. On the other hand, psychotherapy has been shown to be effective in the treatment of long-term depression. The authors of this document review all the scientific studies about the effect of physical exercise on the treatment of depression, this being as effective as pharmacological treatment or psychotherapy.

People who are overweight and/or obese have high oxidised LDL cholesterol. However, if these persons are in good physical shape and have good cardiorespiratory capacity and muscular strength, their blood lipid profile improves and their risk of suffering cardiovascular diseases is not higher than people with a normal weight. As Professor Steve Blair says, ‘fat but fit’. At Neolife, we measure multiple health and longevity biomarkers including the cardiorespiratory condition and muscular strength. We are aware of the importance of physical condition biomarkers that come before others like cholesterol or blood pressure.

Eighty percent of people who have lost at least 10% of their weight with a slimming diet are not able to maintain this weight loss after one year. weight loss program is considered successful when a person is able to lose at least 10% of his body weight within a maximum of 6 months and when in two years’ time, more than 3 kilos or 4cm of waistline have not been gained back. Weight loss programs should address three components: diet, physical activity/exercise and behavioural modification. Scientific recommendations about the type of exercise that has to be done to lose weight are focused on cardiovascular exercise (more than four hours a week of moderate intensity).However, in recent publications, the importance of strength exercise in weight loss programs to prevent the loss of fat- free mass (muscle) and to increase basal metabolism, which prevents the diet “rebound effect” is starting to be emphasised. The authors of this article suggest physical exercise as the best option for weight loss, the combination of cardiovascular exercise and strength. Neolife Age Management programmes systematically include strength training regardless of if the goal is to lose weight or not.

Lack of time, the difficulty of accessing sport facilities, frequent trips and busy paces of life in general, are an important obstacle of continuing to do in physical exercise. In this article, the authors present and scientifically argue the utility of a simple high-intensity exercise routine that can be done anywhere, without specific sport material and within a short time.

Extreme endurance training can produce acute and chronic alterations in the heart of the athlete whose clinical consequences should be studied in greater depth at the author’s discretion.

The longevity of top athletes compared to their peers in the general population is often speculated. In this study, this issue is analysed. In this study, this issue is analysed. Therefore, the authors gathered the available information about 15,174 Olympic medalists from nine countries who won their medals between 1896 and 2010 and were compared with the general population of their gender, age, year of birth and country of residence. In eight of the nine countries, the top athletes had a life expectancy higher than their control peers. In general, life expectancy was 2.8 years higher for the athletes. The fact that the medal was golden, silver or bronze did not make any difference in life expectancy. However, champions of endurance sports had higher longevity than those of strength sports. The possible explanations of this higher longevity can be genetic factors, more physical activity throughout all their lifetime, healthy lifestyle habits in terms of nutrition, tobacco and alcohol and better socioeconomic status.

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