Exercise is Medicine isn't a cure-all, but it's pretty close

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It’s news to no one that exercise is good for you, or even that exercise can help treat certain ailments: high blood pressure, back pain and obesity, to name a few.

However, due to increased awareness and a changing culture, more people are waking up to the regular, everyday benefits of working out.

The American Heart Association recommends at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity exercise. That’s just a little more than 20 minutes per day – and we’re not talking run until you collapse, or lift so hard you throw out your back. Moderate-intensity exercises include race walking, swimming laps, hiking and tennis.

The Exercise is Medicine (EIM) initiative, started by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), aims to create a partnership between health care leaders and community stakeholders to provide preventive measures for at-risk populations to become healthy.

So, what might these programs look like for Columbus residents? We talked with a few organizations around Columbus that can get you to that 150 minutes per week or, at least, get your body ready for that 150 minutes.

OhioHealth McConnell Heart Health Center

Without a healthy heart, your body isn’t going to function properly.

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of Americans, and the McConnell Heart Health Center is focused on making sure your heart and vascular system is in the best shape it can be.

Dr. Mike Hyek, senior director of the center, says more people are aware of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle because of the increased focus our culture is putting on that lifestyle.

“It’s becoming a lot more focused upon now because we have a focus on health and wellness,” Hyek says. “Insurance companies are really thinking about, ‘How can we keep our health care spending down?’ People are talking about what that means.”

The center has various programs for specific ailments: cancer wellness programs, pulmonary programs, cardiac rehab and so forth, each of them catering plans to the patient.

“I’ve seen people lose weight, they overcome depression, they can move better, they develop a return to functionality that they had before they became impaired,” Hyek says. “When you have the conversation with them, they are adamant that the program changed their life.”

Many patients aren’t aware that exercise can treat ailments such as depression, anxiety and cancer. Often, depression and anxiety form as just another symptom of a pre-existing disease, so Hyek says mental health is a major focus.

“Generally speaking, people feel better after they’ve moved,” he says. “There are so many studies that look at exercise versus medication. When you look at the treatment of depression, many times the research shows that exercise is more beneficial than the medicine is.”

Mount Carmel Sports Medicine

Long before there was EIM, there was sports medicine.

Dr. Jacqueline McGowan of Mount Carmel has focused her entire career on rehabilitation, sports medicine and all things physical.

“What drew me to that was not necessarily treating a particular disease or illness, (but) just looking at function and improving function, where exercise comes into play,” McGowan says.

McGowan has worked with patients with all types of injuries and ailments: neurological diseases, stroke, brain and spinal cord injuries, muscular dystrophy, and cerebral palsy, to name just a few. She also works with athletes who have chronic pain and arthritis due to excessive working out. And in patients across the board, she’s seen the benefits of regular exercise.

“You get that rush of adrenaline and endorphins, and it makes you feel good,” she says. “A lot of my patients who are runners … are very anxious people, and they run to calm down their anxiety. The minute they end up with an injury, they’re in my office, because they need to do it to help with anxiety.”

There has been a major push to incorporate regular daily activity into our lives, and McGowan doesn’t believe it’s just another fad. In the future, she hopes to continue to see a continued shift toward staying active.

“I would love it if medical plans would start covering memberships,” she says. “I really hope there is more of a push for the preventive stuff. Then, focus on educating on exercise.”

The Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany

Allan Sommer, exercise physiologist and health coach with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center at the Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany, says that a focus on exercise has been at the forefront of his professional training, but that understanding each unique client is an important starting point.

“Anyone that I work with one-on-one, there’s definitely a component of the first couple times that we meet, finding out about their personal health history,” Sommer says. “After getting that baseline or foundation of where that individual is, using that appropriate exercise to help … (is) just one tool of a larger toolkit.”

Healthy New Albany Inc. founder Dr. Phil Heit championed a partnership between the Heit Center and the ACSM to promote initiatives and collaborate on EIM global research.

“The Exercise is Medicine program that we’re doing here at the center falls in with some of the initiatives that we’re working with the American College of Sports Medicine,” says Heit. “It’s all part of one initiative, which is to keep people active.”

The Heit Center is unique in its approach due to the exercise center downstairs and clinics upstairs. The center combines fitness with physical and mental health in one building.

“The range of chronic conditions that we see people refer to Exercise is Medicine ranges anywhere from obesity, a sedentary lifestyle … high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, depression,” says Sommer. “We work with them and tailor the program for them. So it can range from people that just aren’t exercising to people with some pretty heavy chronic illness.”

Amanda DePerro is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.

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