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by alexey-salmin 1001 days ago
> Exercise is even worse. It has virtually zero effect on CVD outcomes, mortality outcomes in trials where participants were asked to change their behaviors.

This is simply not true and you jump through some curious hoops to make it look credible. The paragraph you cite basically says "if you start after 60 it's too late". Is then proceeds to add that a few weeks of exercise are not enough, and a few months of follow-up don't catch measurable differences.

But if you actually read the full study that you cite and check the papers it reviews, you'll see that multi-year interventions at middle age with multi-year follow-ups are extremely effective.

Here's one of the reviewed papers, with 6-year intervention and 30-year follow-up: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8...

> During the 30-year follow-up, compared with control, the combined intervention group had a median delay in diabetes onset of 3·96 years (95% CI 1·25 to 6·67; p=0·0042), fewer cardiovascular disease events (hazard ratio 0·74, 95% CI 0·59–0·92; p=0·0060), a lower incidence of microvascular complications (0·65, 0·45–0·95; p=0·025), fewer cardiovascular disease deaths (0·67, 0·48–0·94; p=0·022), fewer all-cause deaths (0·74, 0·61–0·89; p=0·0015), and an average increase in life expectancy of 1·44 years (95% CI 0·20–2·68; p=0·023).

2 comments

This is biased reading at its worst. I was simply stating what the authors concluded based on their analysis of 10-20 studies (not just one). This is what they say in the abstract: "The results show that exercise does not reduce all-cause mortality and incident CVD in older adults or in people with chronic conditions, based on RCTs comprising ∼50,000 participants."

One study with 500 people doesn't prove a point.

Of the top of my head I know at least one other study where mid-life lifestyle intervention didn't reduce mortality (it slightly increased it in a statistically non-significant manner). 21 yrs follow up. ~3000 people. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.0...

Healthcare Triage: "To the research!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkO44tzkXyQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFBBjynBpSw

tl;dw -- the relative risk reduction can be as high as 50%, and depending on risk factors, the absolute risk reduction can be 5%.