“Not quite” aren’t exactly words we affiliate with accomplishment. In point of fact, very few things in life, it seems, count much at all if you don’t “hit the nail on the head.” Fortunately, this may not be entirely the case when it comes to longevity. As a chiropractor in Santa Barbara, who has many older patients and who is also a firm believer in the advantages of exercise at every age, I was very interested in the following study.
Researchers found that of the “least-fit” versus the “slightly more fit” in a recent study of nearly 4,400 healthy Americans, roughly 20 percent with the lowest physical fitness levels were twice as likely to die over the nine years of the study as the 20 percent with the next-lowest fitness levels. (In other words, those 20 percent who were nearly at the lowest fitness levels.) This is the time-honored “bad news/good news” situation. It is certainly bad news if you are a resolute couch potato. However, it is undoubtedly good news for those who haven’t quite hit rock bottom in the sedentary lifestyle department but are not, by any stretch of the imagination, “exertive.” Apparently, those individuals who continue to be even moderately fit as they age may have greater longevity than those who are entirely out-of-shape, the study suggests.
The study included 4,384 middle-aged and older men and women whose fitness levels were assessed during exercise treadmill tests sometime between 1986 and 2006. For approximately nine years thereafter, the researchers observed the study groups progress. Such factors as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure were considered in the study. This, in and of itself, accentuates the significants of being physically fit. In an email to Reuters Health, Dr. Sandra Mandic, of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and lead researcher of the study wrote: “Our findings suggest that a sedentary lifestyle, rather than differences in cardiovascular risk factors or age, may explain the two-fold higher mortality rates in the least-fit versus slightly more fit individuals.”
Nearly two-thirds of the least-fit study participants failed to get at least 30 minutes of moderate activity, five or more days a week, which was the minimum recommended amount of exercise. “These results emphasize the importance of improving and maintaining high fitness levels by engaging in regular physical activity,” Mandic said, “particularly in poorly-fit individuals.”
Separating the study group participants by fitness levels, the researchers discovered that 25 percent of the least-fit individuals had died during the study period, versus 13 percent of those who were in slightly better shape. Only 6 percent of the most-fit group (i.e., the ones who “hit the nail on the head”, so to speak) had died during the follow-up period.
The five fitness-level groups presented little difference, overall, in their reported exercise routines during most of their adult lives, but conspicuously, they contrasted in activity levels only in recent years. “Since it is recent physical activity that offers protection,” Mandic said, “it is important to maintain regular physical activity throughout life.”
And, perhaps it goes without saying, just think of the health advantages we could all experience if we worked our way up into the higher levels of fitness.
SOURCE: Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, August 2009.
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