In its March edition, the prestigious journal JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) published the review article “Exercise during pregnancy” by Alejandro Lucía, a researcher at the Universidad Europea, on the benefits of moderate exercise from week 12 of pregnancy.
According to Lucía, “there has been a greater fear of exercise during pregnancy than the effects of any drug”, however “there is increasing evidence to prove otherwise”. In fact, as the researcher explains, moderate exercise can be beneficial from the first trimester until the end of gestation.
He also believes that, “pregnancy is a great time to start exercising”, given the future mother’s awareness of taking care of her health, and “there are no risks or secondary effects”. Lucía stresses that we must “lose this fear” and that, “doctors must encourage it because it mitigates weight gain in the mother”.
World Physical Activity Day
April 6 is World Physical Activity Day, a date designed to raise public awareness on the importance of sport for our health and to fight against sedentary lifestyles. The Universidad Europea, aware of the benefits of physical activity not only in healthy individuals but also to prevent or treat the effects of certain pathologies, has been investing great efforts in researching sport and health for years.
Alejandro Lucía’s article is an example of this, but there are many more such as the meta-analysis study carried out by Lucía and fellow researcher Helios Pareja “Physical Activity and Alzheimer Disease: A Protective Association”, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings and which analyzes the risk of suffering Alzheimer’s based on physical activity in previous years; and also the “MECCA Microbiota and exercise against cancer” project, which includes researchers Mar Larrosa and Margarita Pérez, a full professor in Exercise Physiology.