Exercise and mortality

[Guest guest]

From the on-going discussion, it seems that it is already well

established that exercise increases the average age of mortality,

i.e., you get to live longer if you exercise than if you don't.

The same conclusion is reached by the following article that studied

over 30,000 people for an average of 14.5 years in Denmark. I think

that if a similar study were conducted in a U.S. city, like

Washington, D.C., the cyclists would not do so well because they would

have increased risk of dying by being run over by a car.

Tony

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Arch Intern Med. 2000 Jun 12;160(11):1621-8.

All-cause mortality associated with physical activity during

leisure time, work, sports, and cycling to work.

Andersen LB, Schnohr P, Schroll M, Hein HO.

Institute for Exercise and Sport Sciences, University of

Copenhagen, Denmark. lbandersen@...

BACKGROUND: Physical activity is associated with low mortality in

men, but little is known about the association in women, different age

groups, and everyday activity. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship

between levels of physical activity during work, leisure time, cycling

to work, and sports participation and all-cause mortality. DESIGN:

Prospective study to assess different types of physical activity

associated with risk of mortality during follow-up after the

subsequent examination. Mean follow-up from examination was 14.5

years. SETTING: Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.

PARTICIPANTS: Participants were 13,375 women and 17,265 men, 20 to 93

years of age, who were randomly selected. Physical activity was

assessed by self-report, and health status, including blood pressure,

total cholesterol level, triglyceride levels, body mass index,

smoking, and educational level, was evaluated. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE:

All-cause mortality. RESULTS: A total of 2,881 women and 5,668 men

died. Compared with the sedentary, age- and sex-adjusted mortality

rates in leisure time physical activity groups 2 to 4 were 0.68 (95%

confidence interval, 0.64-0.71), 0.61 (95% confidence interval,

0.57-0.66), and 0.53 (95% confidence interval, 0.41-0.68),

respectively, with no difference between sexes and age groups. Within

the moderately and highly active persons, sports participants

experienced only half the mortality of nonparticipants. Bicycling to

work decreased risk of mortality in approximately 40% after

multivariate adjustment, including leisure time physical activity.

CONCLUSIONS: Leisure time physical activity was inversely associated

with all-cause mortality in both men and women in all age groups.

Benefit was found from moderate leisure time physical activity, with

further benefit from sports activity and bicycling as transportation.

PMID: 10847255