The health benefits of exercise impact your body from head to toe. By exercising at least 30 minutes a day on most days of the week, you can dramatically lower your risk of disease and injury. Exercise also helps improve your emotional health.

5 Health Benefits of Exercise

It is impossible to fully calculate the health payoff of a few weekly hours at the gym, in the pool or on the field. However, if you need a little extra motivation to get active, consider the following five health benefits of regular exercise:

1. Strengthens and protects your heart and lungs. Exercise provides numerous benefits to the heart. It lowers levels of LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol, reducing the risk of blockages (plaques) in your arteries that can lead to heart ailments. Exercise also reduces high blood pressure.Regular workouts help build your lung capacity, which improves your body’s ability to use oxygen. As heart and lung function becomes more efficient, blood travels more easily through the body. This helps you feel a higher level of energy.
2. Increases muscular strength and joint flexibility. Strength-training exercises build muscle tissue, boosting your overall strength and making it easier to do everything from controlling your dog as he strains at the leash to lifting baggage into the overhead bin of an airplane. In addition, exercise increases the flexibility of your joints, making them less likely to become injured.
3. Promotes weight loss. Exercise burns calories. Most people who are overweight will shed pounds if the amount of calories they expend exceeds the amount of calories they take in while eating. People who are not overweight will better maintain their healthy weight level even as they age and their metabolism begins to slow.Maintaining a healthy body weight is crucial to reducing the risk of many illnesses and conditions, including heart disease and diabetes. In addition, a slimmer body frame reduces the pressure on bones and joints and reduces the risk of osteoarthritis.
4. Improves mood and reduces stress. When you exercise, the body releases neurotransmitters known as endorphins. The release of these chemicals helps reduce pain, relieves stress and gives you a sense of overall well-being. Exercise also activates the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine, which help relieve depression.
5. Builds and maintains strong bones.  Weight-bearing exercise builds and strengthens bones. This can help ward off osteoporosis, a thinning of the bones that occurs in many women after menopause and in some men as they age.Strength training exercises and weight-bearing activities can best build bone mass. Examples of weight-bearing activities include walking, running or jogging; skiing; weight-lifting; basketball and aerobic activities such as dancing.Older adults without a previous history of regular exercise can still increase bone density through exercise.

Exercise also boosts your emotional health in other ways. For example, a person who becomes fit is likely to have a stronger self-image.

Use It or Lose It

According to a 1990 CDC study, lack of exercise and poor diet accounts for about 14 percent of all deaths every year, making this combination the biggest lifestyle-related killer of Americans aside from smoking.

Failure to exercise can be directly linked to higher risk of coronary artery disease,  colon cancer, and type 2 diabetes, according to the CDC. People who are regularly active sharply reduce these risks.

However, you must continue to exercise throughout your lifetime to maintain these benefits. Within months of stopping exercise, nearly all of the health benefits of exercise disappear.Even professional athletes fail to maintain any of the long-term benefits of exercise unless they continue to remain active. Therefore, it is important to view exercise as an ongoing, long-term investment in better health.

Coffee provides more than just a morning jolt; that steaming cup of java or mandheling  is also the number one source of antioxidants in some countries and,  particularly, in the U.S. diet, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Scranton (Pa.). Their study was described at the 230th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

“Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close,” says study leader Joe Vinson, Ph.D., a chemistry professor at the university. Although fruits and vegetables are generally promoted as good sources of antioxidants, the new finding is surprising because it represents the first time that coffee has been shown to be the primary source from which most Americans get their antioxidants, Vinson says. Both caffeinated and decaf versions appear to provide similar antioxidant levels, he adds.

He cautions that high antioxidant levels in foods and beverages don’t necessarily translate into levels found in the body. The potential health benefits of these antioxidants ultimately depends on how they are absorbed and utilized in the body, a process that is still poorly understood, says Vinson, whose study was primarily funded by the American Cocoa Research Institute.

The news follows a growing number of reports touting the potential health benefits of drinking coffee. It also comes at an appropriate time: Coffee consumption is on the rise in the United States and over half of Americans drink it everyday, according to the National Coffee Association.

Antioxidants in general have been linked to a number of potential health benefits, including protection against heart disease and cancer. For the current study, Vinson and his associates analyzed the antioxidant content of more than 100 different food items, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, oils and common beverages. The data was compared to an existing U.S. Department of Agriculture database on the contribution of each type of food item to the average estimated U.S. per capita consumption.

Coffee came out on top, on the combined basis of both antioxidants per serving size and frequency of consumption, Vinson says. Java easily outranked such popular antioxidant sources as tea, milk, chocolate and cranberries, he says. Of all the foods and beverages studied, dates actually have the most antioxidants of all based solely on serving size, according to Vinson. But since dates are not consumed at anywhere near the level of coffee, the blue ribbon goes to our favorite morning pick-me-up as the number one source of antioxidants, he says.

Besides keeping you alert and awake, coffee has been linked to an increasing number of potential health benefits, including protection against liver and colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease, according to some recently published studies. But there’s also a downside: Java can make you jittery and cause stomach pains, while some studies have tied it to elevated blood pressure and heart rates. More research is needed, particularly human studies, to firmly establish its health benefits, Vinson says.

While the findings would seem to encourage people to go out and drink more coffee, Vinson emphasizes moderation. “One to two cups a day appear to be beneficial,” he says. If you don’t like coffee, consider drinking black tea, which is the second most consumed antioxidant source in the U.S. diet, Vinson says. Bananas, dry beans and corn placed third, fourth and fifth, respectively.

But don’t forget about fresh fruits and veggies, the researcher cautions. “Unfortunately, consumers are still not eating enough fruits and vegetables, which are better for you from an overall nutritional point of view due to their higher content of vitamins, minerals and fiber,” Vinson says. Dates, cranberries and red grapes are among the top fruits for antioxidants on the basis of concentration (antioxidants per serving size), he says.

However, it is best for you to consider the science of the blood type diet in which it mentions that coffee is beneficial for those whose blood type A, B and AB. For Type ABs, it’s better to drink only  one cup of arabica coffee a day.  For Type Os, coffee increases already high stomach-acid levels they owned, so it is best if it is eliminated all together. Actually,  some Type Os already had good adaption to coffee and they have no problem with drinking coffee, but still with limited dosage of one cup of  arabica a day.