Demonstrating the Value of Exercise

Via Medical News Today, another reminder of the value of exercise: "US scientists comparing middle aged and older regular runners with healthy equivalents for more than 20 years found that vigorous regular exercise was linked to longer life and less disability in old age. ... Fries and his team had 538 members of a nationwide running club and 423 healthy controls from northern California fill in questionnaires every year for as long as they could, from 1984 to 2005 ... The mean disability score was higher for the controls than the runners at all stages of the study and went up with age in both groups, but on average, for runners the onset of disability started later. ... Runners' initial disability was 16 years later than nonrunners ... Runners had a significantly lower risk of having a disability score of 0.5. ... 19 years into the study, 15 per cent of the runners and 34 per cent of the controls had died, and after adjusting for possible confounders, runners showed a greater chance of living longer. ... The differences in disability and longevity between the runner group and the control group continued to diverge at the end of the study, as the participants approached their 80th birthday."

Link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/117929.php

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