Incidental exercise, universal dental care, STIs in remote Australia and the burden of brain disorders

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What is the preventable epidemic affecting babies in remote Northern Australia?

Unknown 0:02

This is an ABC podcast.

Dr. Norman Swan 0:06

Hello and welcome to this week's health report with me, Norman Swan. Today, a preventable epidemic in Northern Australia leading to babies dying. The economic and personal burden of neurological, mental health, and substance use disorders in Australia. How we need a universal dental care system in Australia. And for years we've heard about the benefits of incidental activity. Walk to the shops, taking the stairs. But what if you could transfer? prayer, the principles of high intensity interval training. Those are short spurts of intense exercise that get the blood pumping to this incidental movement we do every day. Researchers are suggesting you can pack a workout into just a couple of minutes a week.

Dr. Norman Swan 0:46

Heaven. Health reporter James Bullen has the story.

Helen Christensen 0:49

Level or going up.

James Bullen 0:55

It's 8 33am, I've just arrived at work and I'm taking the elevator up to Radio National. This is part of my daily routine, but I've noticed some colleagues have a more peculiar and punishing route to level 4. Rather than the lift, they trudge up 8 flights of stairs, then another 8 to get down for lunch, another 8 after lunch, and another 8 to leave the building. They do get a bit of a huff and a puff on, but how much good does it really do?

Emmanuel Stamatakis 1:28

Incidental physical activity is whatever we do for day-to-day living that is not done specifically for the purpose of exercise, fun or health.

James Bullen 1:40

Emmanuel Stamatarkis is Professor of Physical Activity, Lifestyle and Population Health at the University of Sydney.

Emmanuel Stamatakis 1:48

So incidental physical activity is we walked from the lift to my office. You walking to the bus stop or the train stop. If you had to carry your heavy shopping from the supermarket to the boot of your car.

James Bullen 2:04

You might get all the exercise you need, playing sport, or going to the gym, but if you haven't exercised in a long time, if you're overweight or obese, or if you're very time poor, these exercise snacks could be appealing.

Emmanuel Stamatakis 2:18

This is the beauty of it. Zero time commitment. It is not necessary to make the time to walk up the stairs instead of the lift. The chances are that you could have walked up the stairs quicker when you came to see me.

James Bullen 2:31

And we've heard about the benefits of incidental activity before. The catch here is that you can't just go for an ordinary stroll in the park. Researchers would usually categorize that as moderate physical activity, but high intensity incidental activity, like sets of stairclimbs, is tougher.

Emmanuel Stamatakis 2:50

Vigorous physical activity, vigorous aerobic physical activity is when you get to a point you're so much out of breath that you find it hard to speak. Or you can only speak in short phrases. On the other hand, moderate intense physical activity, you should be getting slightly out of breath. You can talk, but you cannot sing.

James Bullen 3:12

Professor Stamatarkis is the author of an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine talking about the potential benefits of this type of exercise.

Emmanuel Stamatakis 3:21

The evidence is very encouraging, it's small in volume, very small in volume. There's an opportunity here for us researchers to shift our physical activity paradigm here. And stop thinking about amounts only. Amounts of physical activity are important, there is no question about that. But it looks like that it is not only about the total amount of physical activity. The quality of physical activity, in particular the regular sessions of high intensity physical activity, no matter how brief they are, they seem to be very, very promising.

James Bullen 3:52

In one small Canadian trial, researchers saw an improvement in the cardiorespiratory fitness of a group who performed sets of stairclimbs after just six weeks, compared to a control group of people who did nothing at all.

How can incidental physical activity be turned into a time‑efficient workout?

Emmanuel Stamatakis 4:05

The evidence from these trials is very very encouraging because we can see that among groups of very young adults between nineteen and twenty two Six weeks. of a protocol of stair climbing that consists of Three climbs per day. Four hours apart. And every climb is only three flights of stairs. Every climb is 20 to 22 seconds. Total daily dose, one minute of exercise per day, three days per week, over six weeks, we can see measurable increases in cardiovaspiratory fitness.