Researchers say exercise can treat some conditions as effectively as drugs do

Oct 2, 2013 20:41 GMT  ·  By
Exercise can treat some conditions as effective as drugs do, researchers claim
   Exercise can treat some conditions as effective as drugs do, researchers claim

According to a new paper in the British Medical Journal, prescribing exercise instead of or alongside drugs to people suffering from various common conditions might not be such a bad idea.

Thus, researchers explain that, according to recent findings, exercise can turn out to be at least as effective as drugs in terms of reducing the risk of death in the case of heart disease, heart failure, stroke and prediabetes patients.

In some cases, it can happen that exercise actually works better than drugs, they maintain. Therefore, “[It] should be considered as a viable alternative to, or alongside, drug therapy.”

EurekAlert tells us that, in order to determine whether or not exercise can replace some of the drugs now available on the market, the researchers assessed the health of four different groups of people. All in all, they looked at the medical records of 339,274 individuals.

Some were suffering from coronary heart diseases, others were recovering from a stroke, and a third group was undergoing treatment for heart failure. The people in the fourth group were on the verge of developing diabetes.

It was thus discovered that stroke victims are more likely to avoid death by exercising on a regular basis rather than by taking drugs, the same source reports.

People diagnosed with coronary heart disease and prediabetes appeared to get roughly the same benefits from exercising and drug treatments. Heart failure patients, on the other hand, lived the longest when prescribed various drugs.

In light of these findings, the researchers recommend that further investigations into how regular exercise influences a person's health be carried out. More so given the fact that, as this study has shown, it can sometimes happen that exercise provides more profound and sustainable health gains than drugs do.

“In cases where drug options provide only modest benefit, patients deserve to understand the relative impact that physical activity might have on their condition,” they wished to stress.