CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Researchers from Australia found that physical activity could increase the life expectancy of adults over the age of 40.
'Our findings suggest that [physical activity] provides substantially larger health benefits than previously thought,' the authors wrote.
They found that if the middle-aged people could be physically active as the top 25 per cent of the population, they could expect, on average, to live an extra five years.
Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the study focused on the daily physical activity data of U.S. adults aged 40 and above in 2003 to 2006, and federal data on U.S. deaths from 2017 and 2019.
The researchers noted that the physical activity of the most active 25 per cent of Americans over the age of 40 was about 160 minutes of normal-paced walking at 4.8km per hour each day.
They believe that if all people over 40 matched this level of physical activity, then their average life span will rise by five years, boosting the life expectancy at birth to nearly 84 years from 78.6 years in the U.S.
They further said that if the adults in the least physically active category try to match the physical activity of top level, it would be equivalent to an extra 111 minutes of walking at a pace of 4.8 km per hour each day.
'Infrastructure measures that encourage active transport, walkable neighborhoods, as well as green spaces might be promising approaches to increase physical activity and resultant healthy life expectancy at the population level,' the writers recommended.
Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2024 AFX News
