Scientific Programme
Industry Partner Programme
PS-PL03 - Exercise is (not just) medicine: getting more people more active for health and development
Date: 05.07.2024, Time: 16:15 - 17:30, Lecture room: Clyde Auditorium
Description
The benefits of physical activity in improving health have been well documented, and today exercise is prescribed as medicine for many noncommunicable diseases. The discovery of molecular transducers of exercise effects, which can mediate exercise-induced changes in other organs, has helped lay the groundwork for the "exercise is medicine" (EiM) argument, as exercise activates multiple signalling pathways important for health. However, a true translational perspective is needed to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice, thereby translating research perspectives into policy decisions with direct implications for public health. Since being physically active throughout life is a basic human right, how can we make more people active and people more active? Advising people to move regardless of the principle of training specificity and interpersonal differences sounds trivial. What activity and dedicated to whom is best to promote? Where and when? Understanding correlates and determinants could reduce the effect of inactivity epidemics. This plenary session will dive into these topics by involving two opinion leaders in the field, whose expertise will enable us to address the question: is EiM is the right approach for tackling physical inactivity? For example, why should we promote an active lifestyle whilst exercise mimetics exist? Exercise is more than medicine, it goes beyond medicine.
Chair
Danilo Bondi
University of Chieti - Pescara, Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences
Italy
ECSS Glasgow 2024: PS-PL03
Speaker A
Bente Klarlund Pedersen
Rigshospitalet, Centre for Physical Activity Research
Denmark
Read CVECSS Glasgow 2024: PS-PL03
Exercise as medicine in a translational perspective: the role of myokines
During the past couple of decades, it has been apparent that skeletal muscle works as an endocrine organ, which can produce and secrete hundreds of myokines that exert their effects in either autocrine, paracrine, or endocrine manners. During exercise, myokines allow for crosstalk between the muscle and other organs, including brain, adipose tissue, bone, liver, gut, pancreas, vascular bed, and skin, as well as communication within the muscle itself. Myokines mediate effects on cognition, lipid, and glucose metabolism, browning of white fat, bone formation, endothelial cell function and tumor growth. Importantly, an anti-inflammatory environment is mediated with each bout of exercise, and long-term anti-inflammatory effects are mediated via an effect on abdominal adiposity. These effects are at least partly mediated by the myokine IL-6. The physiology and molecular biology of exercise suggests that exercise activates multiple signaling pathways of major health importance. There is, however, a need to close the gap between knowledge and practice and assure that basic research is translated, implemented, and anchored in society, leading to change of praxis. In order to make more people move, we need a true translational perspective on exercise as medicine, from molecular and physiological events to infrastructure and architecture, with direct implications for clinical practice and public health.
Speaker B
Jonathon Fowles
Acadia University, School of Kinesiology
Canada
Read CVECSS Glasgow 2024: PS-PL03
Attacking the pandemic of physical inactivity: it is not an insoluble problem
Physical activity has been identified as a best buy in health for many years. No pill and few other behaviors provide such an array of disease prevention and health and quality of life enhancing benefits. Thus, it is not a surprise that we expect physicians and other health professionals to advise their patients to become more active. And over the last three decades evidence has mounted indicating that brief counseling from a physician coupled with referral to other health professionals with more knowledge about exercise and physical activity and more time to dispense this information leads to increased participation in physical activity among those counseled. This is especially so if the referrals extend to community sites and programs where sport, recreation, and physical activity actually occur. From the Green Prescription in New Zealand to national practice guidelines in the UK (NICE) and the US (Guide to Clinical Preventive Services) to progressive private health care systems (Kaiser Permanente in the US) and even to national programs such as in Slovenia there are many excellent examples of effective incorporation of sport, exercise, and physical activity into health care. But these examples are far from the norm. In this talk we will examine why it has been so challenging to get physicians and health care systems to truly integrate physical activity promotion into standard practice. We will also try to place physical activity counseling and referral into context as part of an overall strategy to increase population levels of physical activity. How much should we expect of physicians and health care systems? Are they an essential component of national physical activity promotion, necessary but not sufficient, or merely a distraction? Exercise is medicine, but only if taken as prescribed! Dr. Fowles will be highlighting the learnings from Exercise is Medicine Canada over the last decade and describe a provincial approach to integrate EIM into health care systems and communities, outlining the key recommendations being implemented to improve population physical activity and exercise participation.