The Health Edge: translating the science of self-care
“It’s not what we don’t know that gets us into trouble. It’s what we know that ain’t so”.
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We believe the explosion of life science research from many disciplines had catapulted ahead of our capacity to process, integrate, understand, and apply. We are interested in translating all that is out there as news to use. A fundamentally different understanding of human biology has emerged. The implications from the perspective of self-care are profound. We are rapidly moving away from the debate of nature versus nurture toward an understanding that life emerges from a dynamic landscape of nature via nurture.
We are passionate about the science. We are passionate about the implications. We believe in the capacity and possibility made possible by being alive here and now! We are beautifully designed to be on the African Savannah, living fully integrated with our planet, and in the context of social relationship. Our modern environment is not well designed to promote human health and the capacity to thrive. Many are struggling to maintain balance and traction in lives that often feel overwhelming and frightening.The challenge is to better leverage our superb ancestral adaptation for a different and radically challenging modern environment. Everything that touches us today has the potential be be very familiar or totally foreign. The less aware one is of the day to day distance between what we are biologically , as a species, “familiar with” and what we actually encounter, the fewer the possibilities for more effective alignment.
Leaving one’s health trajectory to chance in our modern environment is a very risky proposition. We are interested in holding the science to the light with an open and humbled mindset. Like you, We are intrepid explorers interested in how we emerge in the midst of our relationship with the environmental inputs of our lives…how we eat, how we move, how we sleep, how we navigate the mind fields of conflict in our lives, how socially connected we are, how we manage the burden of environmental toxins in our lives, how much meaning we cultivate in our work, love, play and how we interpret and respond to stress in our lives. We will drill deep, share all that my experiences has taught and do all that we can to create value for you as you seek to find your health edge. We always welcome your feedback.
Mark and John
The Health Edge: translating the science of self-care
The Walking Prescription
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We break down new research showing how a simple daily walking habit drives outsized gains in longevity, heart health, brain health, and mood. We also zoom out to the bigger idea that walking is not “extra credit” exercise but a basic human requirement that modern life keeps pushing out.
• why small doses of movement deliver big risk reduction
• what a systematic review and meta-analysis actually mean
• why around 7,000 steps per day stands out versus 2,000
• why cadence and speed matter less than total steps for most people
• links to lower risk across mortality, cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, diabetes, cancer, and falls
• how outdoor context adds benefits through light, nature, and social connection
• the “walking meetings” idea and a negotiation story that hinged on taking a walk
If you like what we're sharing, please share with your those you love, your friends. All of this content can be found at our website, the healthedgepodcast.com.
Summer Memories And Moving More
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Health Edge, translating the science of self-care. I am Mark Pettis and with my friend and buddy John Bagnulo. John, good morning. Good morning, Mark. Happy summer. Happy summer into July, July 1. The months just fly by. And this is that time of year where you'd like it to slow down a little bit. Yeah, exactly. It is uh we were just sharing before we hit the record button, John, of just how awesome it is to be driving around town, seeing the kids playing little league and kids out playing soccer. And uh I'll go, I'll go a full day sometimes in my neighborhood and and not see any kids uh you know riding their bikes or you know, hanging out. But so when they're all out sort of doing the summer thing, it's it's brings me joy. And it, I think for a lot of us, it brings you back to those those times as a kid.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it also it also brings me a lot of joy to be able to go outside barefoot in the morning without worrying about frostbite. You know, it's uh I mean it's it's just such a great free time of year in terms of like just whenever you can go outside, it's it's usually beautiful. And then, like you said, you feel like it only lasts a month. So you want it to slow down, that's for sure. Definitely.
The Lancet Update On Walking
SPEAKER_00Well, we have a a recent review. This was uh an excellent article published in the Lancet, the Lancet Public Health UK, European, you know, just a very um highly respected peer-reviewed uh journal that uh provided a really nice update, a very thoughtful update on walking and the remarkable health benefits of walking. And I think what we will both sort of emphasize as we look at this paper, John, um, is a theme that we've often reflected on with respect to exercise. And and that that principle is very what some might consider low, maybe even insignificant amounts of movement, like 15 minutes of walking, has a a greater risk reduction, a greater health benefit than what one might fully appreciate. And this article uh did a really nice job of reviewing lots of studies, and and we can get into that. And um uh I we also have a um there was a second paper which uh we'll share. It's not the focus of this review, but it was a recent uh similar review, but it focused more on the mechanisms of walking. And again, um while you're out there just having a nice relaxed walk, you you might not realize that your DNA is being regulated, that your your biome is is being uh modulated, that your your uh cognition and and mental mindset is is being fine-tuned. And and so there's uh there's so much going on that may or may not reach that level of full appreciation for the person doing it. And so this is a um kind of a nice gift to unwrap, um, in my view, John.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it's it's incredible how ubiquitous I think the the positive effects are on our physiology, right? And I think we tend to really lock in on the heart, you know, because that's what has been ingrained in in us since we were probably pretty young, that, you know, cardiovascular, just a word, cardiovascular exercise, you know, you're thinking heart. But to your point, I mean, just to think about the benefits neurologically are they're pretty dramatic. And your risk reduction for, you know, neurological decline, cognitive impairment, you know, I think that really stands out to me most notably in these papers.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And while these papers, these studies are never designed to look specifically at uh the context within which one might be walking, but you know, we we we often will comment uh you know, if you're out walking outside, you're getting some of that uh morning sunshine or late day, early evening sunshine. Maybe you're walking in the woods and just fully immersed in nature. Maybe you're walking with a pet or or a friend, right? So there's the walking, and then there's the context within which you can start to sort of layer uh independent effects that that are very complementary. And so this time of year I'm reminded that there's there's probably a big difference between walking, maybe uh the mall, uh, if you have a mall that's still open in your town, or walking on a treadmill in a club versus just going outside in the morning and and walking in that early morning sunshine. And and so um uh, you know, there are many ways that one can can add to that modest effort.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I forget the name of the the Japanese researcher that coined the term forest bathing. You might, I'm sure you've heard of this before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Shinrin Yoku.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's impressive, buddy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the Japanese um uh just and it's so ingrained in their culture how that philosophy is inheritable in everything they do.
SPEAKER_01This and uh they yeah, my point being if you add that to the layer, right? You add that to the walking, you're getting even more of these inputs that we know really shift a lot of our biochemistry in the right direction. Definitely.
SPEAKER_00Well, let
Systematic Review And Meta Analysis Basics
SPEAKER_00me uh share my screen here, John. We've got a few slides that we'll share. These will be on our uh website for those who want to review them in more detail. So this paper was published uh last July, and uh it's from, as we said, Lancet Public Health. And um this um they did two sort of methodologies here, John, which I I think are important. One one is what is referred to as a systematic review, and I think our listeners are probably very aware of what a systematic review is, right? These are these are thoughtful and um um uh reviews that look at various clinical databases, and the you know, the the science of systematic reviews has continued to evolve. So there are criteria, there are tools that are used to extract data and to try to minimize bias. These have become very sophisticated uh in terms of the process, uh, but but a systematic review, of course, is uh a nice up-to-date uh state of science. And and then they did a meta-analysis. And uh, unlike a systematic review, what a meta-analysis will do, for those who who may not be aware of the difference, is a meta-analysis will also go back and look at several studies, but what they attempt to do is to increase the power of any particular study by pooling data uh from those studies. So um a study that may have had a smaller number of individuals when uh pooled with uh another study of a similar methodology enhances the power just by increasing the number of subjects. And uh and so there are two sort of aspects to the data that this group looked at. And this this is out of Australia from the Sydney Faculty of Medicine and School of Public Health.
Why 7,000 Steps Is A Threshold
SPEAKER_00And um just sort of to cut right to the chase here, John, right? So this was a systematic search that was done uh in in 2024. They went back 10 years, they found um several studies, they had 13 other reviews that um they included and uh into this publication that somehow addressed the connection between how many steps a person takes each day with important health outcomes. And often those health outcomes are limited to mortality, cardiovascular. They they tend to fall into the cardiovascular category. One of the things that I appreciated with this study, John, is they looked at many other comorbidities, including um fall risk, cancer, type 2 diabetes, dementia, uh it's a bit more global in the outcomes that they they uh address. And so um looking at all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, incidence, and incidence refers to essentially new cases. How many new cases of heart attacks uh did one see during the period of study? Uh dementia, depression, physical function, and falls, which are you we talk a lot about lean body mass and mental health and strength, and uh again, uh falls could be the single most common uh breaking point, a tipping point in terms of quality of life downhill, loss of independence, and then this sort of stacking of other health complications. So this is so important. Anything one can do to reduce those risks down the road. So the study here showed consistent associations across all these outcomes, John. In other words, right, uh the more walking one did, all of these outcomes showed some measurable and statistically significant and clinically significant reductions in mortality and in diabetes incidents, cancer incidents, dementia, depression, right? I mean, what pill can do this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, it's it's it's fascinating because when I look at it, and again, I you know, I'm somewhat tainted by years of looking at research that shows the effects of, let's say, a deficiency, a nutrient deficiency, right? When I look at at these, um this study in particular, Mark, and I look at the findings, and I look at again how widespread the favorable effects are with respect to our health with very small doses of exercise. You know, I look at it sort of like a very similar study to what would be shown with a nutrient deficiency, which is when you have very small amounts of something occurring, you have such protective effects on widespread biochemical pathways. I think I see the same thing here. And it speaks to the importance of exercise. Like we have a requirement. The human body has a requirement for walking every day. That's the position I would take when I look at these numbers. And if you don't meet that requirement, it's just like having a nutrient deficiency. I mean, look at look at the vitamin D deficiencies, how right, just how pervasive those effects are, every aspect of our health. And again, it's a hormone, but you could look at what's generated by 15 to 20 minutes of walking, and you could say there's a requirement physiologically for that.
SPEAKER_00I love that, John. And it and it makes me think of what we've often talked about with sunlight, sunlight deficiency syndrome, we might call it, right? Or how little time people spend in nature, nature deficiency syndrome. And I love that because this is central to who we are as a species. And um uh you know, vitamin W, I guess we'll call this. Uh uh, that that's a great observation. When you um look at the number of steps, that they began to see these significant reductions in risk, John. It it's important to note that it these are not large volumes of of steps, right? They they found that at around 7,000 steps per day is when you really see things uh uh shifting. Those curves really start to separate. We'll look at those curves uh in a moment. Uh but they they found uh you know a wide range, but consistently anywhere from six to almost 50% lower risks compared to say taking only 2,000 steps per day. Uh and so there is a dose response. And um I I think we would um also suggest that uh more might be better, but you know, again, this is just a good target, and the sort of 10,000 steps per day has become a generalized recommendation, which is fantastic. Uh but uh this would suggest that that threshold could be lowered some. And uh what what they weren't able to find a strong relationship in, because this is an obvious question, is does it matter how fast you're walking? If I take 7,000 steps and I'm right, I'm moving at a pretty good clip, and uh and I I take 10 minutes doing that versus say 20 minutes, uh, is there a difference? And and uh while there certainly may be a difference, the data uh uh is inconclusive. Um uh but I I think for the most part, uh anytime uh we you look at any other study where the cardiac demand is increased, where you're you're increasing your heart rate and right your breaths per minute, you do tend to see, independent of the number of steps that you're taking, uh additional benefit. But um that didn't jump out from the data that they reviewed here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know, to if I were to like if I were to try to say that it's less important, um, I would look at previous investigations where the authors conclude it's the total amount of work someone does at the end of the day as opposed to the speed at which they do it, right? So if someone's gonna walk a mile, whether that's at six minute or ten minute pace, they're they're basically accomplishing the same amount of work. And so I've heard the argument made by exercise physiologists and others that, you know, that's probably more if you had to choose, it's more important to get the work in, even if it's at a slower pace. But again, to your point, I we know that higher intensities tend to produce some some changes in different areas of our health that are stressors, right? That when we adapt to it, we come out on the on the better side of things. So I I see it both ways, but I like the fact that they use steps, Mark, because I think it I think just again, to your point, 10,000 has become the goal for so many people. And I I think it's a good goal, don't get me wrong, but to show that only 7,000 still produces the kind of results that this does, it's it's you know, I think it's powerful.
SPEAKER_00Very much so. And these are the um results ultimately that were seen uh from the study itself, based on our meta-analysis, again, pooling data from several studies, compared with 2,000 steps per day, 7,000 steps per day was associated with a 47% lower risk of all-cause mortality. Uh these are these are hazard ratios. So a 45, a 47% risk reduction would be a hazard ratio of 0.53. And that's a very dramatic uh risk reduction. And when you look at what we uh often look at in terms of the integrity of the data are these confidence intervals. And the importance of this is if your confidence intervals are a tight cluster around that hazard ratio, and and here you see a really tight confidence interval, that um would suggest a very strong um cause and effect the dose response and the integrity of that data. Yeah. As opposed to a confidence interval that might go, say, 0.46 to 1, where data is all over the place, and your ability to sort of trust the integrity of the conclusions that you're making won't be as solid. They found a 25% lower risk of cardiovascular disease incidence. And again, that that's a hazard ratio of 0.75. And again, pretty tight confidence intervals here. Anything that crosses one, you can almost ignore the data as meaningful or or significant. Uh, and then uh cardiovascular disease mortality, like all-cause mortality, also with a 47% risk, and again, very tight uh confidence intervals here. So that's a that's a pretty robust finding. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And from a public health perspective, it definitely is this is this is news to share. And uh and again, just coming back to the um cadence issue, and again, this is just from the study. Overall, we found the evidence too limited to inform stepping rate recommendations or what they call cadence as a as a sort of surrogate for the uh rate of your walking. More research is needed to investigate the relationship between cadence metrics and health outcomes, independent of stepping volume, to determine which cadence metric are the most relevant to public health messaging. I think we would agree, John, as you so nicely put it, um, it's really just getting out and getting those steps in, worrying less about how fast you're moving.
Brain Mood And Fall Risk Benefits
SPEAKER_00When you um look at their uh data curves, uh, and again, these are looking at the outcomes that we reviewed. These are the hazard ratios, and here you've got uh number of steps per day going up from left to right. And again, when you look at all-cause mortality, you can begin to see risk reduction, even with lower numbers of steps for some of these outcomes. Uh, but here you you sort of see that dose response.
SPEAKER_01Um That's incredible when you see these downward, right, these downward slopes that you know they still don't really flatten out, they just continue to project downward. It really shows you the power of this. You know, the power of this one variable with respect to human health. It's I you wouldn't, I don't think you're gonna find this with many other facets of lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00No. No. And and if you look at the sample sizes here, you know, 161,000, you know, these are this these are pool data from meta-analyses from 14 studies, 120,000, 105,000, um, you know, cancer mortality, this is, you know, these are um huge effects. And uh again, uh, and this is sort of less uh sexy than mortality, right? But if you you look at dementia and right, as we we always say motion is the lotion. Um we we know that brain-derived neurotrophic factor um goes up with with activity. Uh so much of the work that I've done through the years in population health is focused on falls, and this continues to be the uh single greatest reason for people losing their independence, requiring skilled nursing homes. Support, losing their the health trajectory after a fall, particularly if you break your hip, the the health trajectory, the mortality risk goes up dramatically after that sentinel event. So falls are you know the uh falls are to the human, what the kiss on the forehead is to the mafia, uh that you know, that it it is the the future is not likely to be very good unless something is done to uh reduce one's fall risk. And and that brings you into this realm of regular movement resistance and all the things that we talk about all the time. But it's great that they looked at this. Um the magnitude of risk reduction isn't quite as robust, but it's still pretty darn good. And when you look at the dementia, that's that's pretty impressive. Yeah, that is. Um without much uh there just has not been much in that realm of pharmacologic intervention. And then again, these other outcomes, new cases of cancer, very modest. Again, you're almost crossing the the uh sort of the null uh uh line here. Um type 2 diabetes risks down a little bit more, and uh this, and again, you see very narrow uh sort of uh uh intervals here, uh depression, and and I think that something as simple as walking, particularly when you're outside getting full spectrum and brighter light, the as an intervention for depression, which is such a horrible experience for anyone confronting it, um, these are pretty attention-getting results.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think some of the neurotropic factors that get released, even with modest exercise, are incredibly anti-inflammatory to the brain, really help restore the equilibrium there. Um, so but look at, you know, that's a pretty steep curve for depression.
SPEAKER_00It is. And we we talk a lot about resilience, John. How, you know, in a in a modern contemporary life where, particularly from a mental health perspective, you know, every time you pick up a newspaper or listen to the news, or maybe uh, you know, you you you you see people fighting each other. Uh there's so much conflict everywhere you look.
SPEAKER_01Umygdala overactivation, right?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. It sinks the ship. It sinks the ship. And it and it's sort of death by a thousand cuts. So the ability to create more resilience so that you can coexist with that, the the cacophony of modern life in a way that uh even though the the tides will rise, you can rise with those tides and and just go with them, uh, right? You're riding those waves instead of being pulled down by them. And so these are great, not just interventions if someone is down and out, uh, but if if you want to just protect yourself and create more resilience, this is uh a great way to do it.
Mechanisms Blue Zones And Walking Culture
SPEAKER_00And this I thought I would just add this paper.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is this is great.
SPEAKER_00Because it's a nice paper, and it and it's from uh geriatric science, and uh it looks more at the mechanisms. This is a different group uh than the paper we just touched on. This is uh kind of a subject review and and really well done. And uh we talked a lot about the blue zones, and uh the blue zones have become kind of a big marketing uh uh tool. I I think sometimes um the nuances of blue zone data are not widely appreciated, but but nonetheless, in these parts of the world where people just walk, as you say, John, it it's it's uh just an essential of life. You would never not walk unless you had a a reason uh that just was prohibitive for you to do so. And uh so we know that uh this is central to indigenous cultures that that do move a lot, that do certainly spend a lot of time outdoors and eat foods that that are local and and and grown.
SPEAKER_01And uh, you know, Mark, just if I could say one thing about these blue zones and and not just blue zones, but also with respect to walking in general. You know, I think the other part of this is it's really important to accept that slower pace of getting there, which I think a lot of those blue zones have with respect to walking, right? They're gonna walk to, and this isn't possible for everybody because of maybe how rural someone might live. You know, walking to the store, walking to see a friend may not be possible. But in many of those blue zones, these these folks walk together and they their walking is part of daily life in terms of maybe getting someplace, you know, for a reason. So the walking isn't always a uh a prescription per se, right? Yeah. And I think that's and there's something to be said for that, I guess, is what I was what I was trying to get at. I know it wasn't clear that I kind of rambled, but you know, I just think that the mindset around walking, and it goes back to that the questions that are raised around the pace at which you walk or the intensity. You know, I think if uh if you look at walking as like again, there you have a requirement for it, you can enjoy it, and you can integrate it into your day, whether you're walking with a friend or you're walking to, you know, discuss uh, and I know a lot of a lot of um CEOs that I work with, you know, that I do consulting with, a lot of these CEOs, these C level professionals, right? They're they're trying to incorporate walking into their, into their business meetings because that's where we are now, where they look at their schedule and they say, you know, I have to walk, but also I gotta, you know, I gotta meet with so-and-so for 30 minutes. Let's let's do both. And I think that to me is one of the more encouraging things that I've seen emerge in the last five years with my with my practice, is just seeing how many people are just trying to incorporate that walking into just life, as opposed to saying, well, I'm gonna go to the gym and be on a treadmill. No, they're gonna they're gonna find a park to walk in with uh with someone they're trying to negotiate a deal with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that, John. And and is it possible that making a decision in that context or trying to come up with a more creative solution for uh addressing a particular problem uh will be a more effective decision because of the context within which you are doing that. And there's so much research in the uh think about that, Mark. Think about that. Dan Goldman's work and emotional intelligence. Uh exactly. Exactly. And it and it reminds me, John, I not not to digress too much, but it's it's it's a good story.
Negotiation Story Powered By A Walk
SPEAKER_00Years ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting a uh guy named Roger Fisher, the late Roger Fisher, uh, he he wrote a book back in the early 70s called Getting to Yes. And um, which I I think today, 50 years later, is still one of the best-selling negotiation books ever. Fisher was a lawyer, he he was at uh faculty at Harvard Law School, and he was a uh he he did the Camp David talks for uh he he was the architect of the Camp David talks for Jimmy Carter. Well uh at the time it was uh Sadat in Egypt, and I think uh Begin was Israeli's prime minister. It's a reminder that right stuff's been going on in the Middle East, just it seems like there's never uh so so anyhow, Fisher set all this up and um was involved in many major geopolitical uh negotiations, and um he he shared with me a story of uh he he was asked to help uh mediate a land border dispute between uh the countries of Peru and Colombia. And these were uh uh leaders that did not like each other. Uh they were uh uh you know kind of uh enculturated to hate each other, uh just an ongoing human sort of that that that's just we can't get out of our own way. Yeah. And so um uh people weren't very optimistic that anything meaningful would come of this. So Fisher, you know, did his research, learned a little bit about these people, and when they're setting up the negotiations, they they're very specific in who's sitting where. Um so Fisher uh learns that both these guys uh are cigar smokers, and he finds out what their favorite cigars are, and um they're like the second or third day into the negotiations, and there's a cigar in uh each place setting. They're they're sitting across from each other, but there's only one light. Um and he's brilliant. He puts the light. He puts the light uh down uh next to the Peruvian um, I don't know if they're president or prime minister, you know, what what that title is, but and so um uh they decide, yeah. I don't know if we want to smoke these in this room here. Let's go out for a walk. And uh the Peruvian president lights his cigar, realizes that the his Colombian counterpart doesn't have a light, reaches across and lights it, and then flash photo op. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Next thing you know, there's a picture of these two guys lighting a cigar together, and the front pages of both of their national, you know, government run newspapers that put so much pressure on them to then deliver because all people, you know, people all they just saw that holy shit, these guys are so they go out and they go for a walk, and and I think a book was written about this called A Walk in the Woods. And that's awesome. They went with their negotiation teams, and uh this this this land dispute that ended up becoming a um uh for one country it was a concern of of national security. So part of the deal was it would be a demilitarized zone at no point, could any sure uh and and then for the other country who thought that this was their sovereign land, they were um concerned about national security. They said, well, okay, let's make this a national park uh for Colombia. Um it'll be a demilitarized zone. Um Fisher comes away uh several days later, they've got a deal. This this conflict, at least for the time, is resolved. And it was it was all part of that choreography, and then ultimately a walk in the woods. A cigar, a cigar and a walk.
SPEAKER_01Broke down, broke tensions down, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So sorry to digress.
Epigenetics Autophagy And Key Takeaways
SPEAKER_01No, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00But we'll we'll end with um uh just uh with respect to this study that we were talking about, John. This this I like this graphic. This is kind of a nice graphic of of the sort of to your point uh earlier, John, the sort of the global effects here of with walking, you know, we um do a better job of of sensing nutrients, using nutrients that sort of insulin, uh metabolic signaling. Uh we know that mitochondria obviously benefit greatly. We turn on this, these are all epigenetic effects, uh right, these these repair systems that we have in us. We we've got our own repair systems, uh, but they have to be activated. The conditions have to be right for them to work. So most of the things that we confront, we can confront, we can actually repair. But if the conditions aren't right, those systems don't get optimally turned on. We know that inflammation, oxidative stress, right? These passports to accelerated aging are favorably modified, epigenetics, you know, endocrine from sugar to blood pressure, you know, the usual suspects, decreasing these uh aging pro-inflammatory cells. So we we do a better job of our um autophagy, our recycling, and uh and we've talked a lot in the in the past about these SERTUINs, these regulatory genes that um seem to turn on anytime we have these low-level stresses, whether it's uh maybe time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting, walking, more strenuous exercise, ultraviolet light. Um and and and we know, of course, that all of these ultimately at the at the macro level are just helping our organ systems and ultimately our um total body health. And um some of the summaries from their studies, and again, I think just just puts all that we've been talking about into a summary perspective, John. We know that mortality and longevity will improve. As little as 15 minutes of walking, and you know, fast is a, you know, we we put a caveat there. Just get out and walk, don't worry about the speed. Um, and again, here they're 20%. Um the the suggestion from the study we just looked at that this effect might even be greater if you're getting at a little bit longer. Um cardiovascular health, we we've talked about metabolic health, weight control, right? These are you know, mental health, neurologic, and we've talked about BDNF and uh lowering the cortisol, the stress response, and um certainly musculoskeletal health and and all that comes with that. So this this really is uh holy grail, isn't it, John? It is.
SPEAKER_01I don't think you know, like you've said, you know, before and in this morning, you know, there's no there's no pharmaceutical that would bring anything that is even close to this in terms of that dose response. And you know, we have we have to look at it differently. We have to look at it that we have a requirement for walking. And it always goes back to that ancestral lens that you and I, you know, you and I, I think, appreciate so much, which is our ancestors walked whether it was five miles a day or eight miles a day. It depends on you know what anthropologists you talk to and where in the world and or what early human population you were looking at. But it's really clear that our ancestors became incredibly effective, proficient walkers, and it was a big part of the human experience for hundreds of thousands of years. You have to have some of that on a daily basis. That's you know, that's kind of my real high-level look at this.
SPEAKER_00Well, that is a great point to conclude on, John.
Where To Find The Slides
SPEAKER_00And uh we appreciate Health Edge listeners staying connected. And hopefully this information is um of some inspiration. And if you like what we're sharing, please share with your those you love, your friends. Um, John and I have minimal, if any, social uh media output. So uh this is all very granular, and so we appreciate your support. Um, all of this content can be found at our website, the healthedgepodcast.com. And John, until next week, uh stay safe and well and and embrace the summer fun.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you as well, Mark. Enjoy the heat. I love you, buddy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, love you too, my friend. Peace.
