- A mix of healthy lifestyle choices, such as getting enough physical activity, can help people live a longer, healthier life.
- However, the types of physical activity best for longevity remain underexplored.
- A new study says that regularly participating in a variety of different types of physical activity, such as running, cycling, and swimming, may be the best way to help prolong your lifespan.
What can be confusing is knowing what types of physical activity are best for longevity.
A recent study published in BMJ Medicine helps answer that question by finding that regularly engaging in a variety of physical activities may be the best way to prolong your life span.
During these two studies, participants had their physical activity assessed over more than 30 years. Study participants were asked about their involvement in certain activities, including:
- Cardio activities like walking, jogging, running, cycling, rowing, tennis, and swimming.
- Lower-intensity exercises like yoga, stretching, and toning.
- Weight or resistance training
- Vigorous activities like mowing the lawn.
- Moderate-intensity outdoor work, such as gardening.
- High-intensity outdoor work, like digging and chopping.
Yang Hu, ScD, research scientist in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Massachusetts, and corresponding author of this study, told Medical News Today that he and his team decided to examine physical activity and its potential impact on life span because it’s a modifiable lifestyle factor to prevent premature death.
“Unlike genetic makeup that you cannot change, people can choose to exercise more to prevent disease and live longer,” Hu explained. “Accumulative research has shown that most chronic diseases are largely preventable from adopting a good diet and lifestyle. As public health researchers, it’s our mission to keep figuring out the ways to prevent diseases and improve life quality, which makes people live longer.”
At the study’s conclusion, researchers found that the total physical activity and most individual types of physical activity, except for swimming, were linked to a lower risk of death from any cause.
However, scientists said, these associations weren’t linear — the associations for total physical activity leveled off after reaching a certain number of hours.
“It’s common to see a limit of benefits for healthy lifestyle factors such as physical activity because you can’t expect the risk (to) go down to zero with increasing exercise level,” Hu explained.
“We found that all activities included in this study have such limits, meaning that no additional benefits may be gained beyond certain amounts of exercise. So, combining different activities together may be more effective to receive health benefits as long as the total activity level is maintained.”
— Yang Hu, ScD
Additionally, scientists discovered that participants who engaged in a greater variety of physical activities had a lower mortality risk. Those with the broadest range of physical activities had a 19% lower risk of death from all causes, and a 13-14% lower risk of death from heart disease, respiratory disease, cancer, and other causes.
“It’s a pretty novel finding that engaging in more types of activities at a given total activity level may offer additional health benefits toward longevity,” Hu said. “It means that although maintaining a high level of total physical activity is still most important, mixing up different types of activities that have complementary health benefits may be more helpful to prevent premature death.”
“Habitual engagement of almost all commonly practiced physical activities is beneficial to prevent premature death and achieve longevity,” he added. “It’s important to keep a high level of total physical activity, and on top of that, diversifying the types of activities may be more beneficial.”
MNT spoke with Zeeshan Khan, MD, chief of geriatrics at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center in New Jersey, about this study, who commented that his first reaction to its findings as a geriatrician is one of validation and excitement.
“Being physically active helps you live longer, this helps support us when we discuss this,” Khan explained. “For years, we’ve been advising patients to stay active and undergo lifestyle modifications with exercise. This study provides robust long-term data that adds a crucial new dimension to that advice: variety is just as important as volume.”
“This gives us a new tool when counseling our patients. Unable to run? OK, we can try chair exercises and swimming. My hope is that this study will make the discussion between the patient and their doctor more of a conversation as opposed to being one-sided, viewed as an exercise prescription with a portfolio of activities that can be utilized.”
— Zeeshan Khan, MD
MNT also spoke with Bert Mandelbaum, MD, sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon and co-director of the Regenerative Orthobiologic Center at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics in Los Angeles, who said that to increase our “playspan,” or ability to remain physically active late into life, we have to be like a decathlete and participate in many different categories.
“Our bodies have this incredible plastic capability and we could turn it on in a lot of different ways,” Mandelbaum detailed. “From a non-impact way, working on balance, strength, resistance, (and) body weight exercise. Running, sprints, biking, and swimming, all of which have a very additive effect. This paper identifies some of those, but I think the more we look into this, the more we’ll find the same conclusions.”
For the next steps in this research, Khan said he would like to see research that specifically focuses on older adults.
“The participants in this study were followed from middle age,” he explained. “I suspect starting a varied exercise program would still confirm benefits, but dedicated studies are needed to confirm this.”
“Next, it would be beneficial to better define the optimal variety of exercises. This study shows that more variety is beneficial but what is the ideal mix? Future research could explore the specific benefits of combining aerobic exercise, strength training, and balance/flexibility work — like tai chi or yoga — to create an evidence-based ‘longevity exercise prescription’.”
— Zeeshan Khan, MD
And Mandelbaum said as each different exercise type has different components, such as VO2 max, load, and levels of sleep and recovery, all of which needed to be part of the equation.
“Ultimately we have to develop some type of machine learning, that capability that looks at all of these things, all the epigenetic drivers and to see the effect on it, and then we can weight it,” he added. “And I think that those studies are forthcoming.”