Over the last several years numerous articles about importance of exercise have come to light.   In addition, research is pointing to a strong association between sitting and chronic disease.  Driving automobiles, watching television and movies, hours spent on computers, tablets, and smartphones, and in the past few years online social networking and gaming… keeps us sitting more than ever!

Based on the research, a key health benefit of exercise is its ability to help normalize glucose, insulin, and leptin levels. According to Jordan Metzl, a sports-medicine physician at New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery and author of The Exercise Cure:  “Exercise is the best preventive drug we have, and everybody needs to take that medicine.”  It’s been suggested that exercise is “the best preventive drug” for many common ailments, from psychiatric disorders to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Although research is forthcoming, there may be an association between long hours of television and other sedentary activities and chronic disease.  So, if you are sedentary for long periods of time (whether in a car, plane, at work, watching television, gaming, or using online social networking), it’s important to stand at least every hour.  Some even suggest that standing every 15-20 minutes is better.

To learn more: http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2014/01/10/exercise-preventive-drug.aspx