The exact amount of exercise needed to optimize your life expectancy has been revealed in a major study.
Researchers from Spain, Australia, Canada and Denmark examined the medical records and survey answers of half a million healthy Americans over the age of 18.
They checked death records from 2019 to work out the optimal time and type of exercise to reduce the risk of dying from different conditions.
They found the sweet spot for reducing the risk of early death by any cause was a combination of moderate and intense cardio, supplemented by weight training.
The optimal combination was a weekly routine involving one hour and 15 minutes of moderate exercise like brisk walking, at least two and a half hours of vigorous exercise such as running or swimming, and at least two sessions of muscle-strengthening activity like lifting weights.
This correlated to a 50 percent lower risk of death by any cause.
But doing some physical activity is still better than doing none, as a recent study suggested walking briskly for just 11 minutes a day can slash the chances of dying early by almost a quarter.
In the latest study, researchers pulled data from 22 rounds of the US National Health Interview Survey, carried out between 1997 and 2018, in which participants were asked how much of certain types of exercise they did.
The participants had an average age of 46 and were mainly female and white.
Participants’ causes of death were tracked and looked at alongside how much of each type of exercise they had done.
They excluded people with current conditions such as cancer, heart disease, lung disease and stroke, and people who died in the first two years of follow-up.
Researchers designed 48 categories that included all possible combinations of moderate aerobic exercise, vigorous aerobic exercise and muscle-strengthening exercise.
They found that for all-cause mortality, ‘the highest statistically significant risk reduction was observed for the exposure category corresponding to more than zero to 75 minutes of moderate aerobic physical activity combined with more than 150 minutes of vigorous aerobic physical activity and two or more muscle-strengthening activity sessions per week.’
Currently, the World Health Organization suggests at least two and a half hours of moderate exercise, at least one hour and 15 minutes of vigorous exercise and muscle-strengthening activity at least twice a week.
The new findings suggest that actually less moderate exercise and more vigorous exercise is needed.
To reduce the risk of dying from heart disease or stroke, the optimal combination found in the study was between two and a half and three hours and 45 minutes of moderate exercise, up to one hour and 15 minutes of vigorous exercise and at least two sessions of muscle strengthening a week.
This routine appeared to lower the risk of dying from heart disease or stroke by 70 percent.
The weekly combination which reduced participants’ risk of dying from cancer the most was more than five hours of moderate exercise, one hour and 15 minutes of vigorous exercise and at least two sessions of muscle strengthening.
It was linked to a reduced the risk by 56 percent. The study was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
