British endurance experts have suggested that some drugs could actually encourage lazy people to exercise.
Samuele Marcora, a professor of University of Kent, England, advocated the use of caffeine and psychoactive drugs like methylphenidate and modafinil, which could compel people to stick to their fitness regimes and exercise regularly.
He said these drugs decrease the perception of effort in people because human beings were born "lazy", meaning they always look to conserve energy.
Pointing at the perception of effort as one of the important reasons for people adopting sedentary (lazy) behaviour, Marcora said finding a way to make people do even small physical activities like walking, which also needs considerable effort, could be particularly useful.
Additionally, there is a necessity to decrease the perception of effort for people who are either overweight or exercise after work in a condition of mental fatigue.
Marcora said while psychoactive drugs are not strongly opposed for helping quit smoking or treat obesity, the awareness of doping in the sports world might stop people from using the drugs to treat physical inactivity.
With physical inactivity responsible for double the deaths as that of obesity, he hopes psychopharmacological treatment for physical inactivity will be given a serious second thought, and not shoved aside on grounds of doping in sports.
His paper, titled "Can Doping be a Good Thing? Using Psychoactive Drugs to Facilitate Physical Activity Behaviour", has been published in the journal "Sports Medicine".
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), insufficient physical activity is one of the 10 primary risk factors of death globally, with over 80 per cent of the world's population suffering from it. It is also caters to the development of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) like cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
