Walking: The 'Wonder Drug'

 

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

If you want to get healthy or stay healthy, there is one easy activity to add to your day – walking.

"Walking is the closest thing we have to a wonder drug,” says Thomas Friedman. Friedman is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.

And he is not alone in considering walking a great exercise.

Health experts at the Mayo Clinic, the American Heart Association, the Arthritis¹ Foundation, Harvard Medical School and many other health research groups agree.

You may think that simply taking a walk is not enough to make a big difference. You might think that you need do something strenuous² like running to stay healthy.

Well, a new study says that is not true. It finds that walking may be as good for us as running.

Running is a high-impact activity and can be hard on the body. So, many people cannot run. Walking, it seems, has all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages of running.

The American Heart Association explains the findings on its website. Walking quickly, or briskly, can lower your risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol³ and diabetes⁴.

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California did the study. Over a six-year period, they studied about 33,000 runners in the National Runners’ Health Study and just over 15,000 walkers in the National Walkers’ Health Study.

The researchers found that the same energy used for brisk walking and vigorous running “resulted in similar reductions in risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and possibly coronary heart disease over the study’s six years.”

The study also found that the more people walked or ran each week, the more their health benefits increased.

Walking is easy, fun and accessible

Dr. Russell Pate⁵ is a professor of exercise science at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. He is also a volunteer at the American Heart Association. He commented on the study on the association’s website.

Pate says the health benefits of walking are not "all or nothing." If your goal is to walk for 30 minutes a day, you can split that into three 10 minute walks.

Walking, he adds, has the lowest dropout⁶ rate of any exercise. People who start walking regularly usually stick with it.

Pate says what many other health experts say: Walking is one of the easiest and safest exercises a person can do. With walking, he says, there is no learning curve. That means you do not need to learn a lot to get results.

Walking requires no special skills or equipment. You can do it anywhere. It fits easily into your daily schedule. You can walk at work. You can park farther away from a store entrance. You can take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Walking is a great exercise for beginners. If you are out of shape or getting back into shape after an illness or accident, walking is perfect. You can do a little at a time, or as we like to say, take "baby steps."

So, walking lowers your risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. But many other studies have found that walking benefits the body and mind in other ways.

Best of all, you can easily change where, when and how you walk. You can walk with your friends, co-workers, family or your dog. Or you can walk alone.

The faster, farther and more often you walk, the greater the benefits.

Words in This Story

wonder drug - n. a very effective drug or cure

strenuous - adj. requiring or showing great energy and effort

impact - n. the act or force of one thing hitting another

advantage - n. something (such as a good position or condition) that helps to make someone or something better or more likely to succeed than others

disadvantage - n. something that causes difficulty : something that makes someone or something worse or less likely to succeed than others

brisk - adj. moving or speaking quickly : quick and efficient

vigorous - adj. done with great force and energy

coronary - adj. of or relating to the heart and especially to the vessels⁷ that supply blood to the heart

learning curve - n. the rate at which someone learns something new : the course of progress made in learning something. < The job has a very steep learning curve. [=there is a large amount that has to be learned quickly in order to do the job] >

mood - n. the way someone feels : a person's emotional state

circulate - v. to move without stopping through a system, place, etc.

1 arthritis   

n.关节炎

参考例句：

• Rheumatoid arthritis has also been linked with the virus.风湿性关节炎也与这种病毒有关。
• He spent three months in the hospital with acute rheumatic arthritis.他患急性风湿性关节炎，在医院住了三个月。

2 strenuous   

adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的

参考例句：

• He made strenuous efforts to improve his reading. 他奋发努力提高阅读能力。
• You may run yourself down in this strenuous week.你可能会在这紧张的一周透支掉自己。

3 cholesterol   

n.（U）胆固醇

参考例句：

• There is cholesterol in the cell of body.人体细胞里有胆固醇。
• They are determining the serum-protein and cholesterol levels.他们正在测定血清蛋白和胆固醇的浓度。

4 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

5 pate   

n.头顶；光顶

参考例句：

• The few strands of white hair at the back of his gourd-like pate also quivered.他那长在半个葫芦样的头上的白发，也随着笑声一齐抖动着。
• He removed his hat to reveal a glowing bald pate.他脱下帽子，露出了发亮的光头。

6 dropout   

n.退学的学生；退学；退出者

参考例句：

• There is a high dropout rate from some college courses.有些大学课程的退出率很高。
• In the long haul,she'll regret having been a school dropout.她终归会后悔不该中途辍学。

7 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》