Just 1 hour of running can extend your life by 7 hours

What was previously known about running and life expectancy

Three years ago, a group of exercise researchers took a close look at data from a large number of health and fitness tests conducted at the Cooper Institute in Dallas. This analysis showed that even five minutes of daily running has a positive effect on life expectancy.

After the publication of this work, researchers were inundated with questions from fellow scientists and the general public. People asked if other exercises could be just as beneficial, if running, on the contrary, could be harmful, and also questioned the effectiveness of running.

So in a new study published in March 2017, Iowa State University professor of kinesiology Dak-Chul Lee and his colleagues decided to answer these questions. They reanalyzed data from the Cooper Institute, and looked at the results of a number of other recent large-scale studies on the relationship between exercise and mortality.

What the new study showed

The findings of previous studies have been confirmed. Running, regardless of pace and duration, reduces a person's risk of premature death by almost 40%. And that was true even when the researchers took into account smoking, alcohol use, and health problems such as hypertension or obesity.

Based on these numbers, the scientists determined that if all non-escaping study participants went in for sports, there would be 25% fewer fatal heart attacks and 16% fewer deaths overall.

Also, scientists came to the conclusion: an hour of running returns a person more life time than it takes, increasing life expectancy by seven hours.

The Cooper Institute test subjects trained two hours a week. Based on this graph, the researchers estimate that the typical runner spends less than six months training in nearly 40 years, but can expect a 3.2 year increase in life expectancy.

Can running have the opposite effect? According to scientists, no. Dr. Lee says that the positive effects of running on life expectancy stop increasing at about four hours of jogging per week and no longer decrease.

Other types of physical activity also have a positive effect on life expectancy, but to a lesser extent. Walking and cycling, even if it required about the same effort from a person as running, usually reduced the risk of premature death by about 12%.

Why running is so effective remains a mystery. One speculation is that it fights many common risk factors for early death, including high blood pressure and obesity.

Of course, running will not make us immortal. The results of the new study do not show a direct relationship between running and life expectancy. They only show that running people live longer. Scientists note that runners tend to lead healthy lifestyles and this can also play a large role in reducing the risk of premature death.