NEW STUDY OUT PROVES EXERCISE ALTERS YOUR BODY AT MOLECULAR LEVEL
So what does this mean? Good news. Not only is exercise great for keeping your heart healthy and weight lower, scientists now see how much being fit changes your ability to incinerate fat, moderate blood sugar and otherwise function well. I was reading the latest article in the NY Times magazine, “A Workout for Your Bloodstream,” this weekend and it peaked my interest. Yet another reason to come to bootcamp and get our bodies moving on a regular basis!
The study published last month in Science Translational Medicine, showed that molecules in the boodstream called metabolites, which drive or are the byproduct of metabolic changes in the body, actually did function better after exercising. They studied a group of normal, healthy adults, as well a group of adults who were suspected of having coronary-artery disease. They were told to exercise on a treadmill for ten minutes. Their blood was drawn before and after the 10 minute exercise. The scientists then also examined blood from marathoners, runners who had just completed the 2006 Boston marathon.
They found that after ten mintues of jogging the healthy adults showed changes in the metabolites within their bloodstream (the molecules responsible for metabolism in the body) as did the less fit group although to a lesser degree. Metabolites that were associated with fat-burning were elevated. The most fit of the adults showed increases of almost 100 percent in many of these molecules. These findings suggest that exercise has both ‘accute and cumulative’ effects on your body’s ability to use and burn fat, according to Gregory Lewis, a cardiologist at Mass General Hospital in Boston and author of this study. After only ten minutes of exercise, even the least fit showed evidence that their bodies were burning fat but not as much as the people who were the most fit of all.
So there you have it: the more you work out, the more your body burns. The more fit you are, the greater number of these special molecules, which keep up fat burning and also may regulate cholesterol and blood sugar. So keep coming to bootcamp! The more you get moving, the more chances you have of increases the changes in your blood levels that keep your body healthy. So get moving and get that metabolism going!
-Liz Samuel
