MIRACLE CURE TO SAVE NHS

Treating Scotland's unhealthy lifestyle with regular exercise and a better diet will ease pressure on health service

- VIVIENNE AITKEN

EXERCISE and healthy living is the "miracle treatment" which could go a long way to easing the pressure on Scotland's crippled NHS.

With a growing number of elderly people and a Scottish lifestyle plagued by obesity, alcohol, drug and smoking addiction, hospitals and GP surgeries are facing record demand.

And experts believe that a healthier lifestyle as the population ages is vital to the survival of the NHS in its current form.

Dawn Skelton, professor of ageing and health at Glasgow Caledonian University, is among those trying to encourage better habits among patients.

She said: "Physical activity reduces our risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer. It reduces symptoms of disease. It is a miracle treatment but it is just not in a pill."

A report by the World Health Organization last year said if each individual's activity levels increased by a few per cent, it could save billions of pounds a year on health services around the world.

And Professor Skelton, an exercise physiologist, wholeheartedly agrees.

She sees a lot of ageing patients left chronically ill after simple falls and believes a few simple exercises could reduce hospitalisation drastically.

She said: "There are lots of reasons why people could fall but one of the key things is that as we get older all our reserves, our eyesight, our hearing, our balance - all sensory inputs which help us maintain our balance - start to decline in all of us.

"But some of us hit the decline a little bit earlier, maybe to do with sedentary lifestyles or health issues or medication, but if you could improve someone's strength and balance so that they can correct that trip and stay upright then that makes a big difference to whether somebody actually falls and breaks something."