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I find the discourse around exercise to be very peculiar. Despite scant evidence, the belief that exercise is important to health [0] is extremely prevalent. E

I find the discourse around exercise to be very peculiar. Despite scant evidence, the belief that exercise is important to health [0] is extremely prevalent. Even in those cultures that aren't too athletic. Anything to the contrary is highly controversial among both scientists and the general public. You usually only see this when politics are involved, and even then the opinion will be more evenly split. And this is such a benign subject! Sometimes studies will find very little benefit or even negative effects, yet the conclusion will still include the obligatory paragraph talking about how exercise must be so great and necessary. Have to wonder how many don't get published because the result was "wrong". Even without properly controlling for unrelated conditions [1], you'll have a hard time finding a credible study that gives you more than 3-4 extra years (vs absolutely zero exercise). [0] As in life expectancy, rather than some subjective measures. [1] Which would only make the projected life expectancy gain go down not up. The studies that we have so far almost certainly establish a ceiling for life expectancy gains. It could very well be 0. There are very few plausible scenarios under which it would turn out that we're actually underestimating gains. One would be that there's some specific form of exercise that gives you big gains and most people just do it wrong.

voisin 6y ago
Is life expectancy the only benefit worth discussion? How about lower blood pressure, or benefits to various blood markers? Or denser bones?
- lostmsu 6y ago
  Blood pressure on its own is not an issue, same for blood markers. I can see denser bones being a benefit, if it is proven to reduce the effects of getting a trauma.
- auganov 6y ago
  No, but when you define it that way it's hard to have a discussion about "health". Generally if people aren't dying or aren't living in pain it's unclear what's a good measure or if it can be considered indicative of physical "health". It's also pretty rare that something would cause great suffering without reducing life expectancy. There's absolutely a ton of evidence showing improvement to some markers. But similarly you could "improve" them with many drugs and people would naturally be skeptical on whether there's a real improvement to health without trying to treat some specific condition. And you'd usually defer to life expectancy to make the determination.

voisin 6y ago

Is life expectancy the only benefit worth discussion? How about lower blood pressure, or benefits to various blood markers? Or denser bones?

lostmsu 6y ago
Blood pressure on its own is not an issue, same for blood markers. I can see denser bones being a benefit, if it is proven to reduce the effects of getting a trauma.
auganov 6y ago
No, but when you define it that way it's hard to have a discussion about "health". Generally if people aren't dying or aren't living in pain it's unclear what's a good measure or if it can be considered indicative of physical "health". It's also pretty rare that something would cause great suffering without reducing life expectancy. There's absolutely a ton of evidence showing improvement to some markers. But similarly you could "improve" them with many drugs and people would naturally be skeptical on whether there's a real improvement to health without trying to treat some specific condition. And you'd usually defer to life expectancy to make the determination.