Role of Physical Exercise in Preventing Disease and Improving the Quality of Life

Over the last decade studies have shown that physical exercise plays an important role in maintaining an individual's psycho-physical balance. It significantly improves the quality of life and helps prevent numerous chronic pathologies typical of our times, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiorespiratory diseases, obesity, osteoporosis, arthritis, and cancer. Hence physical exercise is an excellent way of maintaining our health, defined not only as the absence of illness, but as a state of psycho-physical well-being. Promoting physical activity as a means of preventing illness could lead to a reduction in healthcare costs freeing up resources for future generations. Nutrition is an additional aspect treated in this volume and it is explained how a balanced diet determines the improvement of performance in athletes and of the quality of life in everyone. The volume will be an essential reading for all health professionals and for residents in medicine and in health and physical exercise.