Health Gem

If You Do One Thing This Week . . . Give Your Metabolism A Boost

Change your body in just 10 minutes! It could be the intro to a high-octane infomercial selling the latest muscle-sculpting programme.

But there’s no need to fork out for a box-set of flab-busting DVDs or buy an ab-inducing contraption that will gather dust in a corner despite your saintly intentions.

In fact, a new study has confirmed that you don’t need to do anything more complicated than a quick bout of straightforward exercise to have an effect on your body’s metabolism.

Researchers looked at levels of more than 200 metabolites – the chemicals involved in metabolism – before and after people took exercise ranging from a short run on a treadmill to a full marathon.

Among the more encouraging findings of the study, published in Science Translational Medicine, were that even the short sessions had an impact on the biochemicals that help to break down fat, and that changes were still evident even an hour after the person had stopped.