The medical profession has made great strides in the fight against disease, improving the health and living conditions of many people. There is an irony in this, however while modern technology has been conducive to better health, it has also contributed to a sedentary life-style in large segments of the population leading to a host of chronic diseases.

Modern technology has made our lives easy by removing virtually all of the physical activity or "work" from our daily lives. Most days we do little more than sit, at our job, in the car and at home maintaining our addiction to television or a screen of some sort.

Modern chronic disease is getting to be a serious problem with around 2600 Americans dying because of it every single day. These "lifestyle" diseases include the "big three" heart disease, cancer and diabetes and account for 60 percent of the world's deaths. That number is set to soar as 388 million people are predicted to die from chronic disease in the next decade.

The principal risk factors indentified are "physical inactivity and an unhealthy diet" This global downward spiral of declining health and sickness seems to be the price we have to pay for labor saving devices and technology that we all get the benefit from on a daily basis.

This seems an extremely high price to be paying for our easy effortless lifestyles. Do we think our children and grandchildren will want to pay the price of an inherited predicted 20'30 year shortened lifespan?

The human body is hardwired for vigorous physical activity and this fact has not changed. This movement is the tool the body uses to stimulate hormones, the chemical messengers that instruct the systems and cells of the body to renew, repair, and replace themselves. When a person stops moving the body processes think that there is no reason to stay strong and starts "shut down mode".

In other words you are on the way out to make room for more productive beings and to conserve resources. The only way to hold off this process is to stay very strong and fit then the body thinks that there is a family to feed and strength is needed to hunt and achieve this.

It all sounds very primitive today when there is a fridge full of food in the next room. But our genes have not changed in thousands of years. The human body needs tons of regular vigorous activity to remain healthy and that is the way it is. Ignore this fact and you will become one of the health statistics dying of modern chronic disease.

It is unlikely that anybody would want to hasten their departure from this world yet why do so many people ignore the message that it is imperative to have an active lifestyle to remain healthy? Have we become so inactive and lazy that we do not even want to help ourselves?

It doesn't take much time to hold off this downward spiral of degeneration. A couple of sessions each week with a proper exercise program that contains strength training exercise is all that is needed to keep our body strong. Add to that a session of interval training and you have a formula to keep you strong and healthy. Interval training is short bursts of activity alternated with rest periods that create the intense activity that our ancestors needed to be able to do when running from a wild animal.

If we continue to send the right signals to the cells they will stay strong and will repair and replace themselves for as long as needed. We need to get away from this idea that doctors and drugs will keep us healthy. Consider the fact that if you were healthy you wouldn't need these things. Good health is a whole lot more that merely an absence of disease and is achieved through being willing to take some responsibility and action for achieving it.