You’ve been good. You’ve been exercising consistently, so you decide to take a (literal) breather.
Though skipping a few weeks of exercise may feel good in the moment, a small study from the University of Liverpool has found that it could lead to health problems in healthy young people.
Specifically, it could mean a loss of muscle mass and introduce metabolic changes, possibly creating a higher risk for diabetes and heart disease, among other diseases, and even premature death.
The study went as follows: 28 people who were healthy and physically active — i.e. they took an average 10,000 steps each day and had an average BMI of 25 — were examined both at the start of the study and following a 14-day period in which they were restricted to only taking 1,500 steps each day. Researchers relied on a dietary journal to make sure they didn’t change their eating habits during this period.
This all translated to a decrease in moderate-to-vigorous activity overall for the participants, from 161 minutes on an average day to just 36 minutes. Their time spent doing nothing leaped by 129 minutes on average. Such inactivity led to skeletal muscle mass reduction and an uptick in body fat, hitting the central part of the body — known as a huge chronic disease development risk factor.
One of the study authors spoke about how surprising the results were.
“We thought that we would see some subtle changes,” study co-author Dan Cuthbertson, who is a reader and consultant for the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, told Health. “But when everything you measure gets worse in such a short time period, including these important risk factors for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, it is actually quite surprising.”
Additionally , it sends a warning sign to those more vulnerable.
“If even those people were at risk, you have to think about what that means for patients who are older or less healthy, or who have other risk factors, like a family history of disease,” head study author Kelly Bowden-Davies told Health.
Cuthbertson said in a statement the results highlight how important it is to stay physically active, as well as the dangers that lurk in being sedentary.
The study is set to be presented this week at the European Congress on Obesity in Portugal.
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If You Don’t Exercise for 2 Weeks, You Could Increase Disease Risk originally appeared on usnews.com
