Fitness: years

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Exercise can extend your life by as much as five years

Dec. 11, 2012 — Adults who include at least 150 minutes of physical activity in their routines each week live longer than those who don't, finds a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Promoting the years of life that can be gained from moderate activity may be a better motivator to get Americans moving, said study author Ian Janssen, Ph.D., of Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.

Janssen and his team used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the National Health Interview Study mortality linkage, and U.S. Life Tables to estimate and compare the life expectancy at each age for adults who were inactive, somewhat-active and active. "Active" was defined as doing at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week.

They found that men at age 20 were estimated to gain as much as 2.4 years of life from moderate activity. Women at age 20 gained about 3 additional years from engaging in moderate activity. The biggest benefit from physical activity was seen in non-Hispanic black women, who gained as many as 5.5 potential years of life.

Janssen hopes the positive message of the study can help health officials better relay the importance of exercise to the public.

"Research has shown that the health messages that have the greatest effect on changing people's behaviors need to be easy to understand, specific to the individual, and be phrased in a gained-framed and positive manner," he explained.

"The messages on longevity gains associated with physical activity that were developed in this paper meet all three of those characteristics," Janssen added. "That is, people will understand what it means if you tell them they will live 2½ years longer if they become active."

Sara Bleich, Ph.D., assistant professor of Health Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said presenting the issue as "years of life gained" versus "years of life loss" raises the classic issue of the carrot or the stick, that is, when it comes to behavior change, do people prefer to be rewarded or penalized?

"For healthy behavior changes such as dieting or smoking, rewards have been shown to effectively motivate behavior change," she continued. "From the current research, it is unclear whether rewards or penalties are more effective at motivating behavior change, but it is clear that rewards do work."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Health Behavior News Service, part of the Center for Advancing Health.
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Journal Reference:

Ian Janssen, Valerie Carson, I-Min Lee, Peter T. Katzmarzyk, Steven N. Blair. Years of life gained due to leisure-time physical activity in the U.S.. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2012.09.056

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Leisure-time physical activity extends life expectancy as much as 4.5 years

Nov. 6, 2012 — Leisure-time physical activity is associated with longer life expectancy, even at relatively low levels of activity and regardless of body weight, according to a study by a team of researchers led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study, which found that people who engaged in leisure-time physical activity had life expectancy gains of as much as 4.5 years, appeared Nov. 6, 2012, in PLoS Medicine.

In order to determine the number of years of life gained from leisure-time physical activity in adulthood, which translates directly to an increase in life expectancy, researchers examined data on more than 650,000 adults. These people, mostly age 40 and older, took part in one of six population-based studies that were designed to evaluate various aspects of cancer risk.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the parent agency of NIH, recommends that adults ages 18 to 64 engage in regular aerobic physical activity for 2.5 hours at moderate intensity -- or 1.25 hours at vigorous intensity -- each week. Moderate activities are those during which a person could talk but not sing. Vigorous activities are those during which a person could say only a few words without stopping for breath.

After accounting for other factors that could affect life expectancy, the researchers found that life expectancy was 3.4 years longer for people who reported they got the recommend level of physical activity. People who reported leisure-time physical activity at twice the recommended level gained 4.2 years of life. In general, more physical activity corresponded to longer life expectancy.

The researchers even saw benefit at low levels of activity. For example, people who said they got half of the recommended amount of physical activity still added 1.8 years to their life.

"Our findings highlight the important contribution that leisure-time physical activity in adulthood can make to longevity," said study author Steven Moore, Ph.D., of NCI's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, and lead author of the study. "Regular exercise extended the lives in every group that we examined in our study -- normal weight, overweight, or obese."

The researchers found that the association between physical activity and life expectancy was similar between men and women, and blacks gained more years of life expectancy than whites. The relationship between life expectancy and physical activity was stronger among those with a history of cancer or heart disease than among people with no history of cancer or heart disease.

The researchers also examined how life expectancy changed with the combination of both activity and obesity. Obesity was associated with a shorter life expectancy, but physical activity helped to mitigate some of the harm. People who were obese and inactive had a life expectancy that was between five to seven years shorter (depending on their level of obesity) than people who were normal weight and moderately active.

Physical activity has been shown to help maintain a healthy body weight, maintain healthy bones, muscles and joints, promote psychological well-being, and reduce the risk of certain diseases, including some cancers.

"We must not underestimate how important physical activity is for health -- even modest amounts can add years to our life," said I-Min Lee, M.D., Sc.D. , professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass., and senior author on the study.

This work was supported by NCI's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics under intramural project number ZIACP010196 and by NCI's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences under grants CA105069 and CA047988. Additional support was received from two other parts of the NIH, the National Institute on Aging (AG18033), and the National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute (HL043851 and HL080467).