World | Other World Stories
Want to live a long life? Run, says new study
People who want to live a long and healthy life might want to take up running.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:59 August 12, 2008
Washington: People who want to live a long and healthy life might want to take up running.
A study published on Monday shows middle-aged members of a runner's club were half as likely to die over a 20-year period as people who did not run.
Running reduced the risk not only of heart disease, but of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, researchers at Stanford University in California found.
Halved death rate
On 19 years "15 per cent of runners had died compared with 34 per cent of controls," Dr Eliza Chakravarty and her team wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Any type of vigorous exercise will likely do the trick, said Stanford's Dr James Fries, who worked on the study. "Both common sense and background science support the idea that there is nothing magical about running per se," Fries said in a telephone interview. "It is the regular physical vigorous activity that is important."
The team surveyed 284 members of a nationwide running club and 156 similar, healthy people as controls.
They all came from the university's faculty and staff, had similar social and economic backgrounds, and all were 50 or older.
Starting in 1984, each volunteer filled out an annual survey on exercise frequency, weight and disability for eight activities.
Most of the volunteers did some exercise, but runners exercised as much as 200 minutes a week, compared with 20 minutes for the non-runners.
"Members of the running groups had significantly lower mean disability levels at all time points," the researchers said.
Share this article
News Editor's choice
-
Into an oasis of values
A place to snuggle in the warmth of old manners away from the bustle of city life
-
The walking MP
Rory Stewart's long walk in life has taken a new turn
-
What drives Africa's new kind of refugees?
Warming-driven factors have led many in the continent to flee their homes
