HEALTH & WELLNESS
Healthy lifestyle tip:
Want a longer, better life?
Exercise pays – all through your life
The secret to a longer life may not be much of a secret at
all: One recent study shows that men who continued to be
moderately physically active later in life
lowered their risk of death. According to
the study, increasing physical activity
benefited lifespan as much as quitting
smoking.
This study involved more than 5,700
men born from 1923 to 1932 who had a
health check in 1972-1973 and again in 2000. Of the men who
led sedentary lives – couch potatoes who didn’t exercise – 51
percent died during the follow-up period between early 2000
and late 2011. However, only about 25 percent of those who
were moderately to vigorously active died during the same
time period.
The message, plain and clear: Just 30 minutes of moderate
activity six days per week was associated with a 40-percent
lower risk of death.
More dangerous than obesity?
A second study that followed 334,000 women and men,
tracked waist circumference and self-reported levels of phys-
ical activity over the course of 12 years. These researchers
found that eliminating physical inactivity would reduce the
number of deaths twice as much as eradicating obesity would.
These results lend further support to
the role of exercise in preventing mental decline, maintaining function and
enhancing cardiac fitness, among other
benefits. The good news: Even a little exercise – as few as 20 minutes of walking
each day – reduced the risk of early death
by up to 30 percent.
Ready to start improving your quality of life and living longer? Just get moving! Watch TV peddling a stationary bike,
walk as you talk on the phone, take the stairs at work – every
little bit of exercise counts and will pay big dividends toward
greater enjoyment of your life.
HEALTHY LIVING