Physical Activities, Longevity And Grimm Reaper; How Fast Does A Grimm Reaper Ambulate?

Hi everyone,

Today I'm going to give you some tips regarding how to avoid being caught by the angel of death (or Grimm reaper etc.). Of course, death is inevitable; every living thing will die eventually but our mission here is to outrun and delay death as much as we can because let's face it, we can contribute to the world better while breathing than lying dead someplace else (probably underground), while being eaten by various kind of maggots. Before I start, I would like to make a disclaimer, that anything that I will write here is only meant for educational and entertainment purposes. The opinion and facts reflected here, in this article don't represent any form of religious belief and every fact here are presented based on a few evidence-based studies, which was designed to improve the quality of life and longevity of human's population.

Charles Foster - Wikimedia (CC0)

How do you portray the appearance of the angel of death on the inside of your head? Does he wear a blackish, torn cloth? Does he carry a scythe? Does he even a he? Whatever kind of description which has been given to the personification of death itself, I think most of us can agree, death comes in a various form. It was planted deep inside certain cultures that death often visit the one who is supposed to be dying in a few days, stays with them until the time comes and then collect whatever piece of souls it can retrieve. In others, they believe that the purpose of Grimm reaper is to guide lost souls to the underworld, preventing them from wandering around, causing chaos (well, I guess in the form of paranormal entities which we often refer to as the ghost) without any responsibility of causing someone's death; in this case, Grimm reapers will only ferry people across the dimension into the land of the dead. Neat, isn't it?

That's enough about the death, now let's talk about the second component of longevity which is an increase in physical activities. Wait, why do I, out of nowhere, trying to talk about physical activities when we were discussing the angel of death? Well, I guess you would know in a few minutes, isn't it? Even though people usually concern about physical activities when they were trying to lose weight, physical activities like exercise is an important tool for longevity. It's associated with a better cardiorespiratory fitness which is one of the key predictors of mortality and morbidity rate. Combined this factor with the other components of longevity such as a proper diet, enough sleep and reduced involvement with high-risk activities, you might able to live a long and healthy life; being healthy itself is considered a luxury.

Physical Activities And Longevity

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In most of the Western countries, the incidence of diseases related to cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and malignancies which are associated with a high morbidity and thus mortality rate are high. Pretty much every single being on earth knew that exercise can be the key item to solve problems related to the increasing death which is usually caused by preventable causes. It has been established by a study that was conducted in 2007 by Warburton et al which was supported by an almost similar study conducted by Samitz et al in 2011 that people who were engaging in regular physical activities such as walking or light exercises can reduce the incidence of being diagnosed with chronic diseases hence reducing their mortality rates by up to 35%. This corresponds to a 4 years increase in the lifespan if we consider the estimation made by a study conducted by Farahmand B et al in 2009 is, in fact, true; for every 40% reduction in mortality rate, life would be extended by 5 years.

Most of the studies have concluded that the life expectancy for an individual who was active in a certain sports increases between 0.43 to 6.9 years in which the huge differences between individuals lifespan increased cannot be explained yet by all of the published data; whether or not you will be living longer than any other individuals will depend on a variety of factors such as genetics and environmental factors. Even if the life expectancy for an active person can be estimated by rough figures given, the actual increase in life expectancy might have been somewhat underestimated. In 2011, a mortality study was conducted which investigated the relationship between 4 main risks factor that can contribute to an increase in mortality rates such as diet, physical exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption with life expectancy. It was found that people who exercise on a daily basis, eat a proper diet, took a moderate amount of alcohol and have never smoked will live 12 years longer than their counterparts.

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Mechanisms behind those theories were highly speculative. There are no exact theories that could give an adequate explanation of the physiological benefits of exercise to the reduction of the mortality rate. However, frequent exercises were associated with an increase in high-density lipoproteins (which are usually called the good lipid) followed by a significant reduction in low-density lipoprotein and triglycerides which will significantly reduce the cardiovascular incidence hence reduction in the mortality rate. We should be aware that the degree of exercise (whether light or intense) doesn't really change the rate of mortality; it will but to the slightest degree thus even if you were not a sportsman, your shot at a long healthy life would be pretty much similar to them, only with significant differences in cardiorespiratory function and the fact that they were engaging in the high-risk activities while getting paid (you might have a slightly better chances at a good, long life compared to people who were playing a few kinds of sports).

Although the comparison between a moderate and an intense exercise on longevity are a bit controversial, the majority of studies have found that most of the athletes have an extended lifespan between 2 to 8 years which are much greater than the lifespan of an average individual. The rate of mortality of an athlete might differ from an average people who exercised (established at 35% reduction of mortality rate), though the conclusion must be thoroughly reinvestigated. Nevertheless, it is pretty conclusive that an increase in physical activities is associated with a decrease in mortality rate. Play football with your friends, go travel, help someone move or take a brisk walk every single evening for 30 minutes, anything that can get you moving would mean a step further from the angel of death.

How Fast Is A Grimm Reaper?

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If you want to live longer, you don't have to play any sports you don't want to or eat any food that you despise; drastically trying to change into something you were not will always affect you negatively in the future. Let's start off simple; try to walk at least, a cumulative of 1 hour per day, every single day. A study which was conducted by Masato Nagai et al, published in 2011 has found that people who walk for more than 1 hour per day would have an improved life expectancy compared to people who just being idle or walk a cumulative of less than 1 hour per day. That's seems interesting isn't it, but wait a minute, in the same year, another study was also conducted to investigate the association between walking and mortality rate, only they were focusing more on the speed of walking. They were obsessed with the Grimm Reaper and try to calculate the speed of the Grimm Reaper.

Even though it was kind of understood that walking can give some benefits to an individual in terms of prolonging their lifespan, it seems more complicated than that. Walking speed has been hypothesised as one of the key predictors of the lifespan duration. People who walk with the speed of 3 mph seems to have a better lifespan compared to people who were walking at the speed of less than 3 mph. People who were walking with a speed of 1/4th of the optimal speed (3 mph) were three times more likely to be "caught" by the death. The study involved 1705 people who were aged 70 years old and above, from all sort of background except for people who have been living in an aged care facility. The study was conducted for 5 years and all of the participants need to come for a follow-up to the 2nd and the 5th year to document their survivability.

The result was quite persuasive. After 5 years of meticulous documentation, they deduced that the angel of death seems to walk at the speed of 2 mph with a top speed of 3 mph hence every single soul who walked faster than 2 mph seems to be fine (low mortality rate); oh and by the way, people who have been walking at the speed of equal or more than 3 mph (the recommended speed of ambulation) were alive after the study period has ended. Unfortunately, the paper was focusing solely on the discovery of the speed of the angel of death without any single possible explanation which could entail why people who were walking with a speed of 3 mph were safe and sound. Could it be a coincidence? Well, possibly but further investigation should be conducted to better understand the reasons behind such phenomenon. It would be quite ridiculous if I have to advise an elderly patient to walk faster than 3 mph to give him a fighting chance against the Grimm Reaper.

Sources

• Death (Personification) - WIkipedia
• Does Physical Activity Increase Life Expectancy? A Review of the Literature
• Golf: a game of life and death--reduced mortality in Swedish golf players.
• Low-risk lifestyle behaviors and all-cause mortality: findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III Mortality Study.
• Impact of walking on life expectancy and lifetime medical expenditure: the Ohsaki Cohort Study
• How fast does the Grim Reaper walk? Receiver operating characteristics curve analysis in healthy men aged 70 and over

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