Brief and Minimal Preventive Instructions to Maximize the Effectiveness

Letter to Editor

International organizations (e.g., WHO) suggest Annual recommendations such as having sports activities to prevent diseases. However, people often do not follow these recommendations. The main reason for not paying attention to these recommendations may be the lack of time [1]. We believe that research institutes provide maximum recommendations. There is little interest among people in participating in long-term activities such as exercise to improve health and prevent chronic diseases. Life mixed with technology has caused inactivity [2]. Current physical activity recommendations for the general population state that all adults should engage in 30-60 minutes of moderate or vigorous -intensity physical activity at most, and preferably all days of the week [3-5]. Lack of time is the most important cause, followed by reluctance to change life habits, lack of knowledge of disease prevention methods, lack of motivation to do sports activities, and lack of understanding its importance among the inhibiting factors in the implementation of prevention programs. We think it is necessary to offer suggestions to increase the interest in complying with preventive measures, including physical and sports activities.

Suppose that 30 minutes of daily exercise can reduce the probability of developing a certain disease, e.g., several types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes [6-8]. It has been found that fewer than half (47%) of cancer survivors in Canada were either “active” or “moderately active” (defined as walking for at least 60 or 30 minutes per day, respectively). This information was gleaned from the Canadian Community Health Survey [9]. What percentage of people in a society really will do this amount of exercise? If we recommend people to do an amount of minimal exercise, e.g., 5 minutes, after a while, we have a large society that exercises this minimal amount daily, and soon these preventive measures become daily habits of life. Then, we may use different sociological methods to increase this minimal interest to more levels of exercises they will easily accept that prevention of many diseases and having a longer life and better quality of life are related to increased physical activity. Using innovative technologies such as mobile apps and websites to encourage people to have minimal daily exercise (e.g., 5 minutes) may improve the suggestion of this program. Investment in this direction May avoid paying very heavy costs in the future for the treatment of diseases.

Conflicts of Interest

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by grant of APVV-20-0421 (Slovak Research and Development Agency, Slovak Republic).

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