Impact Of Aerobic Exercise Research Articles

Benefits and Risks of Exercise

To the Editor.— We enjoyed the article by Koplan and co-workers on the benefits and risks of running in the Dec 17 issue ofThe Journal(1982; 248:3118). They showed that despite the interest and study of the direct impact of aerobic exercise on the cardiovascular system, there are many indirect benefits of this type of exercise that may have more importance in the long run. These effects include the cessation of smoking and loss of weight, two risk factors that are refractory to usual therapy. Fortunately, the authors found that regular participants experienced positive feedback, so dropout was not great and these desirable changes in life-style persisted. The high frequency of associated musculoskeletal injuries was disturbing. It would not be suprising if the actual incidence of these afflictions is even higher, since the group studied may have been able to persist in their running because their injuries were infrequent.