“Close” isn’t generally a word we connect in our mind with success. In fact, very little in life, it seems, counts much at all if you don’t hit “a bull’s eye” or a “grand slam.” Luckily for some, this may not be absolutely true when it comes to longevity. As a chiropractor who has many middle-aged patients and who is also fully dedicated to encouraging my patients to exercise at every age level, I was very happy to read about the results of the following study.
Researchers found that of the “least-fit” versus the “slightly more fit” of the nearly 4,400 healthy Americans in their recent study, roughly 20 percent with the lowest physical fitness levels doubled the risk of dying over the nine years of the study as the 20 percent with the next-lowest fitness levels. (In other words, those 20 percent who were close to the lowest fitness levels.) This is the time-honored “bad news/good news” situation. It is obviously bad news if you are a resolute sofa spud. But, it is definitely good news for those who haven’t quite hit rock bottom in the sedentary lifestyle department but are not, by any stretch of the imagination, “exertive.” Apparently, those individuals who remain even moderately fit as they age may have greater longevity than those who are totally out-of-shape, the study suggests.
Between 1986 and 2006, researchers evaluated the fitness levels of 4,384 middle-aged and older men and women during exercise treatmill tests. The researchers then followed their progress for close to nine years. Such factors as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure were taken into consideration in the study. This, in and of itself, accentuates the importance of physical fitness itself. In an email to Reuters Health, lead researcher, Dr. Sandra Mandic of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, noted: “Our findings suggest that a sedentary lifestyle, rather than differences in cardiovascular risk factors or age, may explain the two-fold higher mortality rates in the least-fit versus slightly more fit individuals.”
Nearly two-thirds of the participants at the least-fit level failed to get at least 30 minutes of moderate activity, five or more days a week, which was the minimum recommended amount of exercise. “These results emphasize the importance of improving and maintaining high fitness levels by engaging in regular physical activity,” Mandic said, “particularly in poorly-fit individuals.”
Classifying the study group participants by fitness levels, the researchers discovered that 25 percent of the least-fit men and women had died during the study period, as opposed to 13 percent of those who were slightly more in shape. Only 6 percent of the most-fit group (i.e., the ones who hit the bull’s eye and grand slams, so to speak) had died during the follow-up period.
The five fitness-level groups presented little dissimilarity, overall, in their reported exercise practices during most of their adult lives, but conspicuously, they varied in activity levels only in recent years. “Since it is recent physical activity that offers protection,” Mandic said, “it is important to maintain regular physical activity throughout life.”
And, perhaps it goes without saying, imagine the health benefits we could all obtain if we worked towards the higher levels of fitness.
SOURCE: Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, August 2009.