It’s safe to say the current division between the Far Left and the Far Right in the United States is great and probably greater than ever before. So great that if you aren’t a part of either, you may believe as I do.

That the biggest problem facing the nation is not abortion, inflation, illegal immigration, or any other hot-button topic.

It’s that extremists would rather tear a rotator cuff than compromise.

But this column has never been concerned about the health of the nation, just yours. It’s also mentioned on more than one occasion that achieving and maintaining optimal health is as much an art as it is a science.

Part of that art is knowing when to be as inflexible as a political extremist, as unbending as an arm with a total biceps tear. As well as knowing that the sort of knowing you’re seeking need not conform to the rigors of research protocol.

Just make you healthier.

And healthier often happens when you consider the fruits of recent research, reflect upon it, and then do what I’m forever after you to do.

Experiment.

One such study worthy of consideration, reflection, and possible experimentation merits special attention since upon first glance it seemingly has little to do with you. After all, the 200 males studied in it were the first to ever accomplish an athletic feat you could never dream of doing.

Run a mile in less than four minutes.

To do so would mean you possess the ability to run four full laps, and another 10 yards around your high school’s track while keeping a pace of just under 60 seconds per lap. Which also means you can run as fast as Drew Griffith.

He’s the high school senior from Butler, PA who set a new state and national high school record at the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s track and field championships this year in the 1600-meter run, the contest just shy of a mile.

So what in the world could you share in common with Griffith and the other 200 older aforementioned genetic freaks?

Probably not body type. Surely not maximal oxygen capacity.

What you share in common is the ability to occasionally increase the intensity of exercise. To take your workout at times to a level someone not as talented or motivated or young could deem extreme.

Because what this study published last month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests is that extreme exercise, whatever its end result, leads to longer life.

Another reason to consider this study André la Gerche, PhD, - lead author, sports cardiologist, and head of the Heart, Exercise and Research Trials Laboratory that’s part of St. Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia - tells Medical News Today is that it counteracts a “stubbornly held view” in the medical community. “That you can do too much exercise.”

When la Gerche and colleagues examined what has since happened to the first 200 males to record a time of under four minutes per mile, however, it seemed the stubbornly held view could indeed be correct. Sixty of the 200 had already passed away and at an average age of 73 - which is about three years lower than the average lifespan of US males.

And while the average age of the 140 still alive at the time of the study was 77, that’s no big deal since it’s only two-thirds of a year longer than the average US male.

But this specific statistic is.

The deceased runners who ran their sub-four minute mile in the 1950s lived on average nine years longer than the “general population.” While la Gerche and his colleagues see these extra years the runners gained as being “significant,” they believe what’s even more so is “many of these runners not only enjoyed long lives but were also healthy. They live[d] better, for longer.”

Another study that shows exercise improves health quality was published last month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Long story short, it found that the nerves that get stimulated when you work out also stimulate something else.

Brain function.

They do so by sending more signals to the brain during exercise, signals that cause a secretion of bioactive molecules and nanoparticles known to enhance brain function.

The study doesn’t attempt to prove exercise improves cognitive function, though, That’s already been done corresponding author Hyunjoon Kong, PhD - Robert W Schafer Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - explains to MNT. Instead, what Kong and colleagues have attempted to do is provide additional insight into why exercise delays the inevitable loss of cognitive function as a result of aging, insight that could perhaps lead one day to such a loss no longer being inevitable.