Healthy Muscles Matter

Why are healthy muscles so important anyway?

1. Diabetes — Having healthy muscles actually decreases your risk of diabetes since muscle is not only important in blunting the magnitude of increases in blood glucose after meals. It also helps prevent decreases in the blood glucose level between meals. What that means to you is this: Maintaining healthy muscles is crucial for keeping your blood glucose levels in the normal range.
2. Bone loss — Prevention of the loss of bone with aging (osteoporosis) is highly dependent on the maintenance of adequate muscle mass and function. That is because strong muscles put tension on the bone, and that is vital for healthy bone function.
3. Heart health — Heart attacks and strokes are more common and usually more disastrous in individuals with depleted muscle mass. To say it another way: Those with healthier muscles live longer.
4. Obesity — Muscle also plays a very important role in energy balance and prevention of obesity. Muscle burns fat because muscle is always burning, even while you are sleeping.
5. Brain health — The essential amino acids become important chemical messengers in the brain that can affect mood, appetite, energy level, sex drive and many other behaviors and feelings that affect our lives.