When prescription drug companies are worried, government worries. This study, targeting the healty living vs. prescription drugs, comes from Britain, not from the US, and it questions the supremacy of our miracle drugs. The results are reliable (and anyway, most of us really knew the hard facts all along): Drugs alone don't give you a long life; exercise is the key. Now comprehensive studies effectively prove that exercise is a crucial component in survival.
Ouch! At this point, every red (cholesterol-loaded) blooded American is turning away, thinking "I don' wanna know!"
Exercise can be as effective as many frequently prescribed drugs in treating some of the leading causes of death, according to a new report. The study raises important questions about whether our health care system focuses too much on medications and too little on activity to combat physical ailments. ...
... Comparative effectiveness studies are a staple of science, of course, especially in pharmaceutical research. Scientists often track how well one drug treats a condition compared with the outcome if they use a different drug. But few studies have directly compared drugs with exercise, and even fewer have compared outcomes in terms of mortality or whether the intervention significantly lessens the chance that someone with a disease will die from it, despite treatment. ...NYT
An impressive number of participants -- 340,000 -- make this a go-to study. And anyway, we've known it all along. Get moving. It's just that we "don't have time," right?
Whatever. In the end, the key to staying alive for many killer conditions is drugs + exercise. "Only in chronic heart failure were drugs noticeably more effective than exercise."
