For this study, researchers analyzed data from two large studies — the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study — comprising more than 173,000 participants. The current study analyzed data from over 111,000 participants.
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.