Is Exercise Medicine?

I personally do not care for that designation, but it helps convey the enormous impact of a physically active lifestyle. Certainly nothing compares to regular exercise in providing a sense of overall health and well being. Or as David Nieman, director of Appalachian State University's Human Performance Lab recently stated a WSJ article, "No pill or nutritional supplement has the power of near-daily moderate activity in lowering the number of sick days people take."

The benefits of exercise are in part due to helping partakers maintain a healthy weight. But, even without weight loss exercise has significant benefits in curbing disease including infectious, metabolic and cancer related maladies. That is why I tell patients discouraged by minimal weight loss with their exercise program that they are doing themselves a tremendous benefit even if their weight remains unchanged.