Walk and stay away from 25 different diseases

A review of 40 studies over past four years shows that walking for 30 minutes a day can cut your risk of about 25 different diseases. The more you walk, the greater the benefits you can:

·       SHED WEIGHT

A person weighing 60 kg could burn 150 calories with half an hour of brisk walking.

·       HALT BOWEL CANCER

A new study in the British Journal of Cancer shows that those who exercise regularly are up to a third less likely to develop polyps, which can become malignant.

·       SLASH YOUR RISK OF HEART DISEASE

About 37% of heart disease deaths are linked to inactivity. Walking decreases the risk.

·       IMPROVE YOUR LOVE LIFE

As men get older, their risk of erectile dysfunction gets higher. Being physically active can halve the risk of impotence.

·       STRENGTHEN BONES

Walking helps guard against osteoporosis. All it takes is 180 minutes a week to maintain bone density.

·       KEEP YOUR MARBLES

Just 1.6km a day might halve your chance of developing dementia. Amazingly, a US study found that walking increased grey matter in the elderly.

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Get sunshine to withstand your fat

If you are finding it hard to shift the kilos, it may be worth upping vitamin D. Researchers believe the sunshine vitamin, which helps build bone strength, may be important in beating the battle of the bulge. A person’s vitamin D levels may actually be a predictor of their ability to lose fat, according to Dr Shalamar Sibley, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota.

“If you start out with an inadequate vitamin D level, it’s possible that this might impede your ability to lose weight on a reduced-calorie diet,” she says.

Vitamin D appears to inhibit a hormone pathway that, when overactive, can contribute to obesity-related problems and affect fat cell development and metabolism. Further research is needed to establish a cause-effect relationship, says Sibley, but the potential is yet another reason to pay attention to vitamin D levels.

Scores of Benefits

If you are low in calcium, increasing your intake may help shed kilos too. When researchers at Laval University in Quebec looked at weight lose in a group of overweight women, they found those deficient in calcium were helped by a calcium vitamin D supplement. It is believed that brain can detect when there is alack of calcium, and compensates by spurring food intake, says study author, Dr Angelo Tremblay. “Sufficient calcium intake seems to stifle the desire to eat more.”

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