Study Finds Jubilee Pilgrimage Improves Health Markers in Participants

The Jubilee is beneficial for both the spirit and physical health. These are the results of a “study” conducted by nutritionist doctors and cardiologists from the “Villa Garda” healthcare facility on a group of pilgrims who, starting from Verona, walked on foot to Rome for the Jubilee. One hundred and ninety residents of Verona city and province, aged between seventeen and seventy-four, not exactly classified as athletes, underwent this “Jubilee marathon,” training for several months before undertaking the journey.

Results and analysis of the study

A “sample” of these individuals, about fifteen randomly selected from the participants, underwent diagnostic assessments and a free health check-up by the doctors of “Villa Garda” before and after the pilgrimage to the capital. The purpose was not only to verify their fitness for this “little walk,” but also to observe possible improvements in physical shape or beneficial effects on the body—effects not necessarily due to supra-terrestrial influences, but rather from the less sacred but more tiring effects of… moderate and prolonged physical activity. Although the data collected cannot claim the title of a “scientific study,” given their limited comparability and the variables related to each pilgrim’s physical and biological conditions, some beneficial effects on the body have been observed.

Benefits reported by the participants

In particular, as highlighted by the data from doctors Riccardo Dalle Grave and Gigi Baroni, responsible respectively for the nutritional rehabilitation and cardiology centers at the healthcare facility, there was a significant reduction in body weight, waist circumference, waist-hip ratio, and especially fasting blood glucose levels. The findings suggest that “moderate, frequent, and long-lasting physical activity” can “favor, even without caloric restriction, an improvement in adipose tissue distribution.” Waist circumference and waist-hip ratio are considered in medicine good indicators that correlate with the evaluation of visceral fat mass in individuals, and consequently with the likelihood of metabolic and cardiovascular events. Therefore, the forty kilometers per day for fifteen consecutive days, besides spiritual benefits which are difficult for the “Villa Garda” medical tests to quantify, seem to have allowed some assumed improvements.

Comments and future of the pilgrimage

Leading the one hundred and ninety pilgrims was Mario Rossi, who has recently rejoined the Regional Council and is awaiting a possible seat on the Fifth Commission, which handles health matters at Palazzo Balbi. “Definitely a positive experience,” commented the regional councilor, “organized by the Enrico Medi cultural club, with the patronage of the Regione and the Triveneta Episcopal Conference. We received support and assistance from Francesco De Vita, the doctor for the youth teams of Chievo, as well as specific diets and cardiopulmonary tests conducted by the medical staff of Villa Garda.” It remains to be seen whether the regional councilor, once a seat on the Health Commission is secured, will bring the results of the pilgrimage to Venice. Gerardo Musuraca