A new study says physical activity can produce an outsized increase in life expectancy for inactive individuals.
Researchers looked at mortality data from 2017 of over 36,000 Americans aged 40 and up. The data was compared to previous data on their activity levels, gathered from 2003 to 2006. The authors then determined how much physical activity impacted their life expectancy.
To help with the analysis, the authors of the study converted all forms of moderate to vigorous exercise into the equivalent of walking minutes. Activity levels were broken up into four buckets. Those performing the least amount of activity were equivalent to 50 minutes of walking per day, with the second group 80 minutes, the third 110 minutes, and the final, most active group, equivalent to 160 minutes of daily walking.
The study found that if all people were as active as the top 25% of the participants, Americans over the age of 40 could potentially live more than five additional years, on average. Notably, if the least active group increased their physical activity to match the top group, they could potentially net 11 more years of life expectancy.
The conclusion? The less active you are, the more you have to gain from engaging in exercise, like walking. Importantly, although the bottom quartile group averaged 50 minutes per day, this was not necessarily completed in a single shot. Instead, this number represented the combined activity those individuals netted over the course of 24 hours.
Even a few minutes of additional exercise can produce meaningful health improvements. Earlier this month, The Dallas Express detailed a new study that showed that as little as five minutes of daily exercise was found to improve blood pressure. Left untreated, high blood pressure, known as the “silent killer,” can result in heart attacks, stroke, and other serious medical complications.
