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InTheEndEntropyWins t1_iyw19v1 wrote

Just another study adding the mountain of evidence that leisure‐time physical activity(LTPA) is good for you.

>the twins with higher long‐term LTPA have higher physical fitness, reduced body fat, reduced visceral fat, reduced liver fat, increased lumen diameters of conduit arteries to the lower limbs, increased bone mineral density in loaded bone areas, and an increased number of large high‐density lipoprotein particles.
>
>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9378553/

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dissolutewastrel OP t1_iyw5nh2 wrote

Physical activity is definitely good for you. But what's the effect size? Here's a paragraph summarizing some data from the same study:

> All the twin pairs came in for physical examinations, and the results were pretty much what you’d expect. The exercising twins had higher VO2 max (38.6 vs. 33.0 ml/kg/min), smaller waist circumference (34.8 vs. 36.3 inches), lower body fat (19.7 vs. 22.6 percent), significantly less abdominal fat and liver fat, and so on. The study is free to read if you want to dig further into the details, but the results aren’t surprising. Exercise clearly improves a bunch of health parameters, and genes clearly matter too—after all, the differences aren’t that big.

https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/twin-exercise-research-2022/

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FiestaBeans t1_iyyc1cw wrote

Those are pretty big effect sizes over a population.

5.6 ml/kg/min improvement in V02 Max

1.5 inches off the waist

2.9% fewer percentage points in body fat

"after all, the differences aren’t that big."

I bet a lot of doctors would love to see those differences in their patients!

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dmlane t1_iyy8vx1 wrote

Yes, but this was a particularly elegant design and not subject to many of the limitations of other studies.

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