Exercise may not be the key to living longer — new research

health

by Adriana Diaz

Survival of the fittest? perhaps.

Exercise may not be the secret to longevity, but According to new research In fact, moving too much can even accelerate your body's aging process, Scandinavian scientists have revealed.

An ambitious study on this oft-debated topic, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, recently won a national sports medicine award in Finland. This research was conducted over a period of 45 years.

Studies have shown that people who exercise more live longer, healthier lives.

But now researchers at the University of Jyväskylä have discovered that physical activity is only one part of the picture, and in some cases can have negative effects on health.

To conduct this study, more than 11,000 Finnish same-sex twins were analyzed from 1975 to 2020.

Participants self-reported the duration and intensity of their daily physical activity and were categorized into four groups: sedentary, moderately active, active, and very active. .

Overall, those who exercised the least amount of exercise were found to be about 20 percent more likely to die over 45 years than those who were regularly active.

However, when filtering out lifestyle factors such as education, body mass index (BMI), smoking, and alcohol intake, that number dropped significantly.

Those in the sedentary group were just 7% more likely to die compared to those in the active group, who had “no additional benefit” from higher levels of physical activity.

As the old saying goes, “Everything in moderation.”

This study showed that both people who exercise too little and too much accelerate biological aging.

Those who were most physically active were about 1.8 years “older” than those who had a more modest amount of physical activity.

Researchers concluded that people who exercise may live longer lives not because of exercise, but because they lead a generally healthier lifestyle.

It was not immediately clear how long each group had been active; The World Health Organization recommends Adults ages 18 to 64 should do at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise per week.

Dr. George Sava, a senior research fellow at the Quadrum Institute, a food and health research center in Norwich, UK, said: told the London Times It argued that the focus on twins gave the Finnish study a “strong research design”.

However, experts warned that researchers' filtering on BMI, which can vary with physical activity, may have skewed some of the effects of exercise.