Just 10 minutes to 30 minutes of exercise a day can improve thequality of life for sedentary, overweight or obese women, Americanresearchers suggest.
The analysis studied hundreds of women, average age 57, who tookpart in the Dose Response to Exercise in postmenopausal Women (DREW)study, first reported in 2007. These newly released secondary resultsfocused on quality of life among 430 women who were randomly assignedto four groups -- three groups did various amounts of exercise (70,135, or 190 minutes per week), while the fourth group did no exercise.
Most of the exercise was divided into three or four sessions perweek. When they weren't doing the organized exercise sessions, thewomen wore pedometers.
All the women in the exercise groups reported a statisticallysignificant improvement in social functioning compared to women in thenon-exercise group, according to the study authors. In addition, womenwho did more exercise also showed improvements in general health,vitality and mental health.
The women who did more exercise also showed improvements in physicalfunctioning and fewer limitations in work or other activities due tophysical problems and fewer limitations due to emotional problems.There was no statistical improvement in pain.
Specifically, after six months of exercise, the women improvedalmost 7 percent in physical function and general health, 16.6 percentin vitality, 11.5 percent in performing work or other activities, 11.6percent in emotional health, and more than 5 percent in socialfunctioning.
"This has not been shown in a large controlled study before,"principal investigator Dr. Timothy S. Church, researcher director atPennington Biomedical Research Center, said in a prepared statement."This is the first large controlled study of postSumber : Biomedicine