Exercise, alcohol, fruit and veg

There was a strike at the BBC yesterday, so the usual “You and Yours” on Radio 4 was replaced with an annotated compilation of recent in-depth reports by Michael Moseley from past episodes (I believe). It made for an interesting alternative podcast listen on my dog-walk today. He discussed the high-intensity exercise regime he tried for Horizon last year, the ambiguity about alcohol units and whether smoothies and fruit juice count towards your “5-a-day”. In summary, it seems most of us don’t get enough exercise, and if we do we’re sitting at our desks too long, most of us are not eating enough veggies, but too many people are slurping down processed fruit juice and fruit smoothies, which one nutrition expert described as “bottled obesity”. In general, it seems fruit is fine but veggies are better (not such accessible sugar and more chewing and roughage/fibre). Jogging couple image via Shutterstock As for alcohol, it would be best all round if we didn’t drink it at all. But, a quarter of a unit (2 grams, a medicinal, not quite homeopathic quantity) every day would be beneficial to the cardiovascular system (possibly) for some people without causing harm to the liver. Speaking of which one expert alluded to the 21 units for men each week as being an upper safe limit, 40 units and you really are going to cause damage and increase your risk of cirrhosis and liver cancer. For women drinking a bottle of wine each week (thatR...
Source: Sciencebase Science Blog - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Tags: Science alcohol exercise fruit veg Source Type: blogs