Continuing with this series of posts, in the first one I talked about health benefits of cycling: weight control, muscle development and immune system reinforcement. Now, I am going to highlight the benefits of riding regarding diseases.

Researchers have demonstrated blood pumping your body and calories burned when riding helps you cut your risk of developing major illnesses such as heart disease and several kinds of cancer. For instance, cycling to work was showed an impact of cutting half the risk of suffering heart attacks or cancer in 260,000 individuals over the course of five years.

Second, cardiovascular disease is a term than includes stroke, high blood pressure and heart attack. By practicing regular cycling, one stimulates and improves her heart, lungs and circulation. Conversely, she reduces her risk of cardiovascular disease. This is related to the fact that riding strengthens your heart muscles, lowers resting pulse and reduces blood fat levels. The comparisons are odious, but research demonstrated that people who cycle to work have two to three times less exposure to pollution than car drivers, and their lung function is improved.

Third, type 2 diabetes is related to lack of psychical activity as a clear indicator of developing such a disease. Large-scales researches have shown than riding for more than 30 minutes per day had a 40 per cent lower risk of developing this type of diabetes.

Related to a previous point, bicyclers are exposed to fewer pollution than car drivers. Indeed, researchers measured air pollution through detectors fitted to a driver, a bus user, a pedestrian and a cyclist. These people moved through a busy route in central London. The results showed the car driver experienced five times higher pollution levels than the cyclist and three and a half more pollution measures than the bus user. As a result, lung health improves when riding instead of driving a car.

Cycling is related to psychology and produces a series of mental benefits as I wrote about it here, here and here. On the other hand, it also provokes a lot of body health benefits. The first post of this series deals with the weight control, muscle development and immune system reinforcement.

The basic equation when intending to loss weight is calories out must exceed calories in. In other words, you need to burn more calories than you consume. Researchers have determined that cycling burns between 400 and 1,000 calories per hour, depending on intensity and bicycler weight. Other research shows that riding for just thirty minutes every day will burn nearly five kilograms of fat over a year. Furthermore, you decide the time and intensity of cycling, thus you can adapt them to your needs.

Additional implications are the joy this activity produces when practiced and how much time you spend burning calories on a bike. Moreover, riding increases your metabolic rate which is closely related to burning body fat. However, weight loss by cycling is boosted with a healthy eating plan.

Next, riding a bike also builds muscle, specially around the glutes, hamstrings, quads and calves. Impressively, muscle is leaner than fat and people with a higher percentage of muscle burn more calories practicing the same sport.

Finally, the immune system is strengthen when cycling. Researchers have found benefits of the upper respiratory system (and reducing instances of the common cold). In addition, mild exercise can improve your immune system by increasing production of essential proteins and waking up lazy white blood cells.

Nevertheless, some research suggests that immediately after intense exercise your immune system is lowered, but adequate recovery such as eating and sleeping well reverses it.