Edward Laskowski, M.D., has helped thousands of people who come to Mayo Clinic learn to use movement as medicine. He has devoted his career to investigating — and sharing — the benefits of exercise on both physical and mental health.
Hear Dr. Laskowski talk about the many conditions that can be prevented and even treated with exercise. Discover why he's convinced that moving your body is healing your body.
A Mayo Clinic expert explains why the most versatile medicine in the world is free.
Edward Laskowski, M.D., Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation: Exercise truly is medicine. The effects that exercise gives us as far as the beneficial effects for our health, psychological health as well as physical health, if it could be bottled into a pill, it probably would be the bestselling pill in all of human history. Because the effects are so significant and so great and so many.
Take this dose: 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week.
Dr. Laskowski: What we found is that amount of activity protects against heart disease, actually protects against 13 separate cancers, lowers your risk of type 2 diabetes, and helps in weight control and weight maintenance. But not just the physical status, but it helps our mental status and our emotional status. It helps anxiety almost immediately when we start moving. It treats depression more effectively than Prozac or cognitive behavioral therapy. It delays the onset of mild cognitive impairment and dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Our studies show this.
There's virtually no aspect of our life that exercise does not improve.
This is one powerful remedy. No prescription necessary.
Dr. Laskowski: And it's free. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to wait in line to get it. It's there for everybody. So truly movement and exercise is the best medicine we can get.
Dr. Laskowski has devoted his career to helping people use movement as medicine.
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