By John Salak –
It is a constant refrain. Regular physical activity, even in its simplest forms, is a gateway to a healthier life. Now a team of researchers has been able to quantify just what a decent daily stroll can mean, especially for those who have been largely sedentary.
A study by Australia’s Griffith University reports that if everyone in the United States was as active as the top 25 percent of the population, individuals over the age of 40 could extend life by five years. The team went on to note that a single one-hour walk could potentially add around six additional hours of life for the quarter of Americans who are least active.
Physical activity has long been cited as a ticket to a healthier life. However, it was difficult to estimate how much benefit could be gained from a defined amount of activity. Griffith researchers overcame this challenge by using accelerometry to better gauge activity levels instead of relying on survey responses used in other studies.
The approach found the most active quarter of people had a 73 percent lower risk of death than their least active counterparts. Not surprisingly, the least-active cohort had the greatest potential health gains for a moderate increase in activity.
“If you’re already very active or in that top quartile, an extra hour’s walk may not make much difference as you’ve, in a sense, already maxed out your benefit,” reported lead researcher Professor Lennert Veerman.
But getting and staying active can have a particularly enormous impact on those reluctant to break a sweat.
“If the least active quartile of the population over age 40 were to increase their activity level to that of the most active quartile, however, they might live, on average, about 11 years longer. This is not an unreasonable prospect, as 25 percent of the population is already doing it,” he said.
Just what that means in expected life expectancy will depend on each individual’s health profile. The current U.S. life expectancy is 78.6 years, with women living a few years longer on average than men, according to the Bloomberg American Healthy Initiative.
The university’s findings also are especially important in comparative terms. U.S. life expectancy, for example, falls well behind other industrialized nations, ranking 13th among these countries, which puts the U.S. at a health and geopolitical disadvantage.
Fortunately, even small levels of increased activity can help. “It can be any type of exercise but would roughly be the equivalent of just under three hours of walking per day,” Veerman said.
The research team suggested low levels of physical activity could even rival the negative effects of smoking, with other research finding each cigarette could take 11 minutes from a smoker’s life. By extension, a more active lifestyle could also offer protective effects against heart disease, stroke, certain cancers and other chronic illnesses, with the study’s findings highlighting a need for national physical activity guidelines to be revisited using these methods.
“If there’s something you could do to more than halve your risk of death, physical activity is enormously powerful,” Veerman added. “If we could increase investment in promoting physical activity and creating living environments that promote it such as walkable or cyclable neighborhoods and convenient, affordable public transport systems, we could not only increase longevity but also reduce pressure on our health systems and the environment.”
