Joan Vernikos

We all know we are surrounded by Gravity (G).  Popular belief has it that G is the enemy that drags us down, makes everything droop and ages us. However the Space Age showed us that living in microgravity of space, virtually with minimal gravity induces faster aging changes than on Earth as witnessed by muscle and bone atrophy and a host of degenerative changes. Subsequent research on Earth showed that reduced G environments or inadequate use of G have shown that the body declines rapidly when G-deprived. It led to the description of the Gravity Deprivation Syndrome. This is characterized by a metabolic dysfunction broadly evidenced by insulin resistance, insulin-mediated inflammation, oxidative stress, ectopic fat storage and organ infiltration with disturbed substrate oxidation affecting not only mobility but health in general.

Conditions of relative G deprivation – sitting, lying down during the day, the reduced mobility of aging and other reduced mobility conditions, are a continuum on the G scale and respond in a uniformly similar way to G deprivation. For instance, sitting for periods longer than one hour at a time is an independent risk for poor health and premature aging. Neither continuous standing nor exercise is the solution. Long hours of uninterrupted sitting are not the opposite of continuous standing, nor are they the same as lack of exercise once a day. Far from being the enemy G is our friend, the universal force that serves as the stimulus, crucial to physiology, form & function.