Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Study: It's Not How Much You Exercise, But How Hard

Aired October 23, 2002 - 08:53   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: It's not how much you exercise, it's how hard you do it that really matters, so says a new medical study.
Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with us.

Before we get to that, we have a little AMERICAN MORNING business to take care of this morning. Are you ready to guys? Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Sanjay, happy birthday to you. Have we embarrassed you too much?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Plenty.

ZAHN: We wanted to know we were thinking of you this morning.

GUPTA: Age is not measured in years anymore, Paula, thank God. It is in attitude, attitude.

ZAHN: Oh, I like that very much.

You have a great attitude at 21, Sanjay. He's the only guy we know who got through medical school and practices neurology and he's still 21 years old. So let's talk about getting fit. Have we been doing it all wrong?

GUPTA: There's been so many studies about this, Paula. We've been hearing about exercise, talking about exercise, almost as much conflicting information as there has been on mammograms, that you and I talked about a lot, but there is yet another study out, and some special facts actually came out of this study. One of the largest studies looking at exercise. A lot of people thinking about this. It looked at over 40,000 men over 12 years, from 1986 to 1998 and found some interesting things. They actually looked at a couple of things, how hard people were exercising, and whether or not they were incorporating the use of weights, actually using free weights as parts of their exercise routine as well.

What they found is if you were a heavy exerciser, and they categorize that as someone who typically walked about six miles an hour, that's 12-minute miles, versus someone who walked two miles an hour, 30-minute miles, we had about a 17 percent reduction in coronary artery disease, you know, risk of heart attacks, if you were a high- intensity exerciser versus a low-intensity exerciser. They also looked at people who used weights. If you were someone who incorporated free weights into your exercise routine versus no weights at all, you had a 23 percent reduction.

And of course if you were someone who exercised versus not exercise, you had a 42 percent reduction. We already knew that. The sort of interesting thing out of this study is actually encouraging people to use free weights and not just aerobic activity. There has been a long-standing myth of just do the aerobic activity if you're trying to stay heart healthy, but if you actually use freeweight, that can be very helpful as well. So that was one of the interesting things there -- Paula.

ZAHN: Do they have any guidance on how much we are supposed to pump? Five pounds, 15, 20?

GUPTA: It certainly depends on who you are and your strength to begin with, but we are not talking about bulking up or really toning up so much as we are just trying to develop some upper-body strength, and this is something I do tell my patients, even before this study came out. It's important, especially as you get older, to maintain upper body strength, not only because it decreases your body fat, increases your metabolism, it also decreases your blood sugar routine, it also decreases blood pressure overall, but also because it improves your upper body strength, so you don't get the poor posture as you get older, it also helps with your breathing as you get older, so lower risk of pneumonia, things like that. If you can incorporate that upper-body routine, that helps a lot.

ZAHN: We shouldn't vouch for the form in some of those shots. I know you have to be really careful when you're lifting weights. The last two guys look like they were exercising the right form; the last guy looked like he was going to blow his back out.

Will you come back tomorrow and tell us about this really weird study that they found one of the benefits of liposuctions is that your breast size increases? This is the wackiest thing I've ever heard.

GUPTA: It might be absolutely true. It might be sort of a two- fer, so to speak. You get smaller whatever, you're trying to get smaller and bigger breasts. We definitely have to talk about that tomorrow.

ZAHN: Come back tomorrow. Now we've given people the big tease. There is a real serious study that's been done on this with many patients.

GUPTA: There is real science behind that. I'll try to explain that tomorrow.

ZAHN: There is?

GUPTA: There is.

ZAHN: Sounds very weird to me. Come back tomorrow, Sanjay. Have a dandy birthday, won't you?

GUPTA: Thank you. I appreciate that. I will.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired October 23, 2002 - 08:53   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: It's not how much you exercise, it's how hard you do it that really matters, so says a new medical study.
Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with us.

Before we get to that, we have a little AMERICAN MORNING business to take care of this morning. Are you ready to guys? Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Sanjay, happy birthday to you. Have we embarrassed you too much?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Plenty.

ZAHN: We wanted to know we were thinking of you this morning.

GUPTA: Age is not measured in years anymore, Paula, thank God. It is in attitude, attitude.

ZAHN: Oh, I like that very much.

You have a great attitude at 21, Sanjay. He's the only guy we know who got through medical school and practices neurology and he's still 21 years old. So let's talk about getting fit. Have we been doing it all wrong?

GUPTA: There's been so many studies about this, Paula. We've been hearing about exercise, talking about exercise, almost as much conflicting information as there has been on mammograms, that you and I talked about a lot, but there is yet another study out, and some special facts actually came out of this study. One of the largest studies looking at exercise. A lot of people thinking about this. It looked at over 40,000 men over 12 years, from 1986 to 1998 and found some interesting things. They actually looked at a couple of things, how hard people were exercising, and whether or not they were incorporating the use of weights, actually using free weights as parts of their exercise routine as well.

What they found is if you were a heavy exerciser, and they categorize that as someone who typically walked about six miles an hour, that's 12-minute miles, versus someone who walked two miles an hour, 30-minute miles, we had about a 17 percent reduction in coronary artery disease, you know, risk of heart attacks, if you were a high- intensity exerciser versus a low-intensity exerciser. They also looked at people who used weights. If you were someone who incorporated free weights into your exercise routine versus no weights at all, you had a 23 percent reduction.

And of course if you were someone who exercised versus not exercise, you had a 42 percent reduction. We already knew that. The sort of interesting thing out of this study is actually encouraging people to use free weights and not just aerobic activity. There has been a long-standing myth of just do the aerobic activity if you're trying to stay heart healthy, but if you actually use freeweight, that can be very helpful as well. So that was one of the interesting things there -- Paula.

ZAHN: Do they have any guidance on how much we are supposed to pump? Five pounds, 15, 20?

GUPTA: It certainly depends on who you are and your strength to begin with, but we are not talking about bulking up or really toning up so much as we are just trying to develop some upper-body strength, and this is something I do tell my patients, even before this study came out. It's important, especially as you get older, to maintain upper body strength, not only because it decreases your body fat, increases your metabolism, it also decreases your blood sugar routine, it also decreases blood pressure overall, but also because it improves your upper body strength, so you don't get the poor posture as you get older, it also helps with your breathing as you get older, so lower risk of pneumonia, things like that. If you can incorporate that upper-body routine, that helps a lot.

ZAHN: We shouldn't vouch for the form in some of those shots. I know you have to be really careful when you're lifting weights. The last two guys look like they were exercising the right form; the last guy looked like he was going to blow his back out.

Will you come back tomorrow and tell us about this really weird study that they found one of the benefits of liposuctions is that your breast size increases? This is the wackiest thing I've ever heard.

GUPTA: It might be absolutely true. It might be sort of a two- fer, so to speak. You get smaller whatever, you're trying to get smaller and bigger breasts. We definitely have to talk about that tomorrow.

ZAHN: Come back tomorrow. Now we've given people the big tease. There is a real serious study that's been done on this with many patients.

GUPTA: There is real science behind that. I'll try to explain that tomorrow.

ZAHN: There is?

GUPTA: There is.

ZAHN: Sounds very weird to me. Come back tomorrow, Sanjay. Have a dandy birthday, won't you?

GUPTA: Thank you. I appreciate that. I will.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com