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Running Slows the Effects of Aging
Study shows older runners have fewer disabilities
than non-runners.
By Caroline Wilbert
WebMD Health News
Regular running slows the effects of
aging, according to a new study from the Stanford
University School of Medicine that tracked 500 older
runners for more than 20 years.
Older runners have fewer disabilities, remain more
active as they get into their 70s and 80s, and are
half as likely as non-runners to die early deaths,
the study shows.
"If
you had to pick one thing to make people healthier
as they age, it would be aerobic exercise," James
Fries, MD, an emeritus professor of medicine at the
medical school and the study's senior author, says
in a news release.
Researchers tracked 538 runners over age 50,
comparing them to a similar group of 423
non-runners. The runners were part of a nationwide
running club.
The
participants, now in their 70s and 80s, answered
yearly questionnaires about their ability to perform
everyday activities such as walking, dressing,
grooming, getting out of a chair, and gripping
objects.
The
researchers used national death records to learn
which participants died and why. Nineteen years into
the study, 34% of the non-runners had died, compared
with only 15% of the runners.
At
the beginning of the study, the runners ran an
average of about four hours a week. After 21 years,
their running time declined to an average of 76
minutes per week.
Everyone in the study became more disabled after 21
years, but for runners the onset of disability
started later. Perhaps not surprisingly, running was
linked to lower rates of cardiovascular deaths from
causes such as stroke and heart attack. However, it
also was associated with fewer early deaths from
cancer, neurological disease, infections, and other
causes, according to the findings.
The
study appeared in the Aug. 11 edition of Archives of
Internal Medicine.
©
WebMD. All rights reserved.
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"If you had to pick one thing to
make people healthier as they age, it would be
aerobic exercise" |
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