okay show of hands how many of you know
someone who suffers from depression keep
your hands up now how many of you know
someone with type 2 diabetes okay and
what about cancer and how many of you
have a parent or grandparent who suffers
from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease now
take a look around the room it seems
that there isn’t a single one of us who
hasn’t been affected by at least one of
these diseases but what if I told you
that I have a medicine that can reduce
your risk of not just one but all of
these diseases
not to mention one that can help you
live longer and make you smarter would
you believe me you probably wouldn’t
some of you might even stand up and walk
out of here either that or you might be
handing me a very big check and I’m
hoping it’s the latter but before you
decide that I’m completely crazy what if
I could offer you years of scientific
evidence to back it up or what if I told
you what was free that might turn some
heads there is one catch however you
can’t swallow it in a pill or in a
liquid and it’s not surgery or a magic
so there’s a very famous quote by dr.
Robert Butler which is if exercises
could be purchased in a pill it would be
the most widely prescribed and
beneficial medicine in the nation just
think about that for a second do we have
any other medicine that can reduce your
risk of all of these diseases and in
some cases reverse them this is why
movement is the magic medicine but
before I tell you how let me tell you
why I’m standing here today speaking to
you when I was 14 years of age I was
sitting down having dinner with my
family I remember exactly what we were
having it was spaghetti bolognaise which
is my favorite and my dad had just come
in after mowing the lawn and he sat down
next to me there was a brief moment of
silence as we all tucked into our meals
and then that silence was broken by the
sound of my dad’s fork hitting his place
and I turned to look at him and he was
sitting there looking down at his open
hand what a very confused look on his
face and he tried to call out but all
that came out was a mumble he was having
a stroke later on that day he was taken
to the hospital and later on that week
he had an even bigger stroke which took
his life and he died and a few weeks
before this he’d been diagnosed with
type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure
two major risk factors for having a
stroke and he was quickly prescribed
medication to address these risk factors
but he wasn’t given any advice on diet
or exercise two other major risk factors
for having a stroke after he died
something changed inside of me and I
decided I wanted to dedicate my life to
saving lives
I decided I wanted to be a doctor and
now here I stand a 27 year old woman
fully qualified as a doctor equipped
with all the skills that I may need to
treat any weird and wonderful diseases
that I may come across but if I’m
completely honest with you I don’t feel
like I’m treating the majority of my
patients not in the long term anyway
because yes if you break a leg or you
get an infection there are pills and
surgery to fix that but for my patients
who have chronic diseases which develop
over a long period of time and have
multiple causes and risk factors such as
depression and type 2 diabetes and
cancer and dementia one pill or one
surgery is not going to fix up and of
course there’s still a place for
medication and surgery absolutely an
exercise can’t fix everything
but for the DS the diseases are can fix
we have the potential to change and even
save lives because these chronic
diseases are claiming lives at an
ever-increasing rate and to explore this
I want to take you back in time let’s go
back to 2000 back then HIV sat at number
seven in the top-ten killer of the world
and thanks to advancements in modern
medicine by 2015 it completely
disappears from the top ten list and
diabetes takes its spot and now one in
eleven of us worldwide suffer from
diabetes ninety percent of which is
type-2 diabetes and in contrast to type
one diabetes type two diabetes can be
prevented through diet and exercise and
here’s the thing this incredible decline
in HIV yet rapid increase in diabetes
highlights exactly where we’re going
wrong we’re treating lifestyle related
diseases such as diabetes as we would an
infection such as HIV with a pill you
see HIV is caused by a virus we know
what our virus is and we can make drugs
which target that virus and stop it from
replicating type 2 diabetes on the other
hand is not caused by one virus or even
one thing rather it’s caused by our
genes interacting with lifestyle factors
such as inactivity and what we know is
that exercise can reduce your risk of
type 2 diabetes by 50% 50% that’s half
but exercise doesn’t just transform our
physical health it can transform your
mental health I mean
how many of you have gone for a run or
finished a workout class and regretted
it I’m sure I’m not saying it was easy
but I’m sure you’ve finished feeling
pretty incredible on top of the world
and that feeling is what we call a
runner’s high but we can apply to all
types of exercise and although that
feeling is short-lived
every time you workout you are training
your brain to be happier to be smarter
and to be healthier because exercise
makes your brain happier and there’s
evidence to show this so there was a big
study done on 33,000 people and they
followed them up after 11 years and they
wanted to know two questions one does
exercise reduce your risk of depression
and two how much do we need to do to
reduce this risk and what they found was
yes exercise does reduce your risk of
depression but the answer to the second
question is even more encouraging
because what they found was one hour one
hour of exercise a week could prevent 12
percent of future cases of depression I
mean that’s pretty incredible
but exercise doesn’t just make you
happier exercise can make you smarter so
every time you exercise you are
improving your ability to maintain
intention you are improving your ability
to multitask including men you are
improving your ability to learn this
means you’re likely to do better at work
get better grades in school and just
make better life decisions so the next
time you have an important interview or
an exam make sure you work out
beforehand or even walk there for
immediate brain boosting effects and
finally exercise makes your brain
healthier in the future by the time
we’re 30 or 40 our brain begins to
decrease in size and this shrinkage
effects important areas of the brain
known as the hippocampus and the
prefrontal cortex areas of involved in
learning attention and memory now this
is a normal process and it happens
faster and slower in different people
but we know that exercise can slow this
right down so just like exercise trains
your muscles to be stronger excess
exercise trains your brain and
connections within it to be stronger too
so that you are less likely to suffer
from diseases that affect your brain
such as dementia and Alzheimer’s but
just like any other muscle if you don’t
use it you will lose it which brings me
on to my next point how much do we need
to do to get all of these incredible
benefits as a rule of thumb we should be
doing about 30 minutes of exercise a day
on most days of the week but it doesn’t
mean that you have to run a marathon or
join a gym it can be anything
I mean swimming even dancing the point
is you’re moving and you’re getting your
heart rate up on two days of the week we
should also be doing muscle
strengthening exercises but again that
can be in a gym if you want but it can
be squats bodyweight exercises like
push-ups and the good news is you don’t
have to do it all at once and really
every little counts so the sign says
that even 15 minutes of exercise a day
can improve your life expectancy by 14%
and any increase beyond that inactivity
will continue to give you those benefits
to a certain point but let me make this
super easy for you you have the power to
transform your health today and you can
do it through these simple steps move
more and sit less you can break it up
throughout the day you can do it in
three ten-minute bursts of exercise and
meet your activities targets think of it
as your exercise snacks accountability
find someone or something that keeps you
accountable because usually it’s quite
easy to get started but the hardest part
is to keep going if you help someone or
something like an app or a journal that
keeps you accountable you are more
likely to stay motivated get organized
make it super easy on yourself plan
ahead package in bag or even leave a
spare kit in work or school that way you
can exercise whenever the opportunity
arises invite friends so I mean I
imagine most of you cut to put your
friends over coffee or a drink
the next time you go for a coffee grab
that coffee to go and take your friend
for a walk you’re hitting two birds with
one stone and you’re getting your
activity in
and lastly commutes can’t commuting is
your single best time to get in your
activity I’ve worked at that if I get
off the tube two stops earlier I can get
it 25-minute brisk walk home you can do
that too
even if you walk cycle run part of the
way to work a school you’re likely to
meet your activity targets and finally I
want to leave you with a thought that
you have the power to prevent disease
you can stop disease in its tracks these
diseases such as Alzheimer’s type 2
diabetes depression are not an
inevitable part of Aging but the
solution is not in a pill the solution
starts with you with all of you and by
moving today and every day you have the
power to transform your health tomorrow
in 10 years and in 50 years because
movement really is the magic medicine
and that is an idea worth spreading
thank you [Applause]
someone who suffers from depression keep
your hands up now how many of you know
someone with type 2 diabetes okay and
what about cancer and how many of you
have a parent or grandparent who suffers
from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease now
take a look around the room it seems
that there isn’t a single one of us who
hasn’t been affected by at least one of
these diseases but what if I told you
that I have a medicine that can reduce
your risk of not just one but all of
these diseases
not to mention one that can help you
live longer and make you smarter would
you believe me you probably wouldn’t
some of you might even stand up and walk
out of here either that or you might be
handing me a very big check and I’m
hoping it’s the latter but before you
decide that I’m completely crazy what if
I could offer you years of scientific
evidence to back it up or what if I told
you what was free that might turn some
heads there is one catch however you
can’t swallow it in a pill or in a
liquid and it’s not surgery or a magic
so there’s a very famous quote by dr.
Robert Butler which is if exercises
could be purchased in a pill it would be
the most widely prescribed and
beneficial medicine in the nation just
think about that for a second do we have
any other medicine that can reduce your
risk of all of these diseases and in
some cases reverse them this is why
movement is the magic medicine but
before I tell you how let me tell you
why I’m standing here today speaking to
you when I was 14 years of age I was
sitting down having dinner with my
family I remember exactly what we were
having it was spaghetti bolognaise which
is my favorite and my dad had just come
in after mowing the lawn and he sat down
next to me there was a brief moment of
silence as we all tucked into our meals
and then that silence was broken by the
sound of my dad’s fork hitting his place
and I turned to look at him and he was
sitting there looking down at his open
hand what a very confused look on his
face and he tried to call out but all
that came out was a mumble he was having
a stroke later on that day he was taken
to the hospital and later on that week
he had an even bigger stroke which took
his life and he died and a few weeks
before this he’d been diagnosed with
type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure
two major risk factors for having a
stroke and he was quickly prescribed
medication to address these risk factors
but he wasn’t given any advice on diet
or exercise two other major risk factors
for having a stroke after he died
something changed inside of me and I
decided I wanted to dedicate my life to
saving lives
I decided I wanted to be a doctor and
now here I stand a 27 year old woman
fully qualified as a doctor equipped
with all the skills that I may need to
treat any weird and wonderful diseases
that I may come across but if I’m
completely honest with you I don’t feel
like I’m treating the majority of my
patients not in the long term anyway
because yes if you break a leg or you
get an infection there are pills and
surgery to fix that but for my patients
who have chronic diseases which develop
over a long period of time and have
multiple causes and risk factors such as
depression and type 2 diabetes and
cancer and dementia one pill or one
surgery is not going to fix up and of
course there’s still a place for
medication and surgery absolutely an
exercise can’t fix everything
but for the DS the diseases are can fix
we have the potential to change and even
save lives because these chronic
diseases are claiming lives at an
ever-increasing rate and to explore this
I want to take you back in time let’s go
back to 2000 back then HIV sat at number
seven in the top-ten killer of the world
and thanks to advancements in modern
medicine by 2015 it completely
disappears from the top ten list and
diabetes takes its spot and now one in
eleven of us worldwide suffer from
diabetes ninety percent of which is
type-2 diabetes and in contrast to type
one diabetes type two diabetes can be
prevented through diet and exercise and
here’s the thing this incredible decline
in HIV yet rapid increase in diabetes
highlights exactly where we’re going
wrong we’re treating lifestyle related
diseases such as diabetes as we would an
infection such as HIV with a pill you
see HIV is caused by a virus we know
what our virus is and we can make drugs
which target that virus and stop it from
replicating type 2 diabetes on the other
hand is not caused by one virus or even
one thing rather it’s caused by our
genes interacting with lifestyle factors
such as inactivity and what we know is
that exercise can reduce your risk of
type 2 diabetes by 50% 50% that’s half
but exercise doesn’t just transform our
physical health it can transform your
mental health I mean
how many of you have gone for a run or
finished a workout class and regretted
it I’m sure I’m not saying it was easy
but I’m sure you’ve finished feeling
pretty incredible on top of the world
and that feeling is what we call a
runner’s high but we can apply to all
types of exercise and although that
feeling is short-lived
every time you workout you are training
your brain to be happier to be smarter
and to be healthier because exercise
makes your brain happier and there’s
evidence to show this so there was a big
study done on 33,000 people and they
followed them up after 11 years and they
wanted to know two questions one does
exercise reduce your risk of depression
and two how much do we need to do to
reduce this risk and what they found was
yes exercise does reduce your risk of
depression but the answer to the second
question is even more encouraging
because what they found was one hour one
hour of exercise a week could prevent 12
percent of future cases of depression I
mean that’s pretty incredible
but exercise doesn’t just make you
happier exercise can make you smarter so
every time you exercise you are
improving your ability to maintain
intention you are improving your ability
to multitask including men you are
improving your ability to learn this
means you’re likely to do better at work
get better grades in school and just
make better life decisions so the next
time you have an important interview or
an exam make sure you work out
beforehand or even walk there for
immediate brain boosting effects and
finally exercise makes your brain
healthier in the future by the time
we’re 30 or 40 our brain begins to
decrease in size and this shrinkage
effects important areas of the brain
known as the hippocampus and the
prefrontal cortex areas of involved in
learning attention and memory now this
is a normal process and it happens
faster and slower in different people
but we know that exercise can slow this
right down so just like exercise trains
your muscles to be stronger excess
exercise trains your brain and
connections within it to be stronger too
so that you are less likely to suffer
from diseases that affect your brain
such as dementia and Alzheimer’s but
just like any other muscle if you don’t
use it you will lose it which brings me
on to my next point how much do we need
to do to get all of these incredible
benefits as a rule of thumb we should be
doing about 30 minutes of exercise a day
on most days of the week but it doesn’t
mean that you have to run a marathon or
join a gym it can be anything
I mean swimming even dancing the point
is you’re moving and you’re getting your
heart rate up on two days of the week we
should also be doing muscle
strengthening exercises but again that
can be in a gym if you want but it can
be squats bodyweight exercises like
push-ups and the good news is you don’t
have to do it all at once and really
every little counts so the sign says
that even 15 minutes of exercise a day
can improve your life expectancy by 14%
and any increase beyond that inactivity
will continue to give you those benefits
to a certain point but let me make this
super easy for you you have the power to
transform your health today and you can
do it through these simple steps move
more and sit less you can break it up
throughout the day you can do it in
three ten-minute bursts of exercise and
meet your activities targets think of it
as your exercise snacks accountability
find someone or something that keeps you
accountable because usually it’s quite
easy to get started but the hardest part
is to keep going if you help someone or
something like an app or a journal that
keeps you accountable you are more
likely to stay motivated get organized
make it super easy on yourself plan
ahead package in bag or even leave a
spare kit in work or school that way you
can exercise whenever the opportunity
arises invite friends so I mean I
imagine most of you cut to put your
friends over coffee or a drink
the next time you go for a coffee grab
that coffee to go and take your friend
for a walk you’re hitting two birds with
one stone and you’re getting your
activity in
and lastly commutes can’t commuting is
your single best time to get in your
activity I’ve worked at that if I get
off the tube two stops earlier I can get
it 25-minute brisk walk home you can do
that too
even if you walk cycle run part of the
way to work a school you’re likely to
meet your activity targets and finally I
want to leave you with a thought that
you have the power to prevent disease
you can stop disease in its tracks these
diseases such as Alzheimer’s type 2
diabetes depression are not an
inevitable part of Aging but the
solution is not in a pill the solution
starts with you with all of you and by
moving today and every day you have the
power to transform your health tomorrow
in 10 years and in 50 years because
movement really is the magic medicine
and that is an idea worth spreading
thank you [Applause]
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