Physical Activity and Aerobic Fitness Correlate with Lowered Mortality and Longer Lives

Today I'll point out the results from recent research into the intersection between exercise and aging. It is well known that undertaking physical activity correlates with a lower risk of mortality and age-related disease, and though the details vary by age, this relationship holds up all the way into late life. Even modest levels of activity, such as cleaning and gardening and walking, appear to have a sizable impact on health and mortality risk. When using human data researchers can typically only establish correlations between exercise and health, which leaves open the possibility that people who are more robust and would have lived longer anyway tend to exercise more often. However, in studies using mice it is quite clear that exercise is the cause of improved health and extends average (but not maximum) life span. It would be surprising to find that this was not the case in other mammals, given the degree of similarity in the cellular and biochemical responses to exertion. The question of whether more exercise is better is an interesting one, and hard to quantify in humans. There is good evidence to suggest that the usual recommendation of 150 minutes per week is too low, for example. Elite athletes live significantly longer than the rest of the population, but it is unclear as to whether this is a reflection of that fact that only unusually robust individuals can manage to become professional athletes, or perhaps that the effect is mediated by wealth, stat...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs