Have you ever considered the impact going for a walk would have on your life if you are over 40 and spend more time on the couch than not?
This subject has been posed and addressed by Australian researchers with promising outcomes.
They have calculated "the impact of varying degrees of increased physical activity on life expectancy" by predictive modeling.
The researchers discovered that going for a single one-hour stroll might extend your life by an average of three hours.
With regard to slackers in particular, the advantage doubles if you are one of the least active individuals. In other words, a single one-hour stroll might prolong your life by six hours.
How they resolved this
Researchers from the University of Sydney School of Public Health, Griffith University School of Medicine and Dentistry, and the Public Health & Economics Modelling Group participated in the study.
Physical activity risk estimates using US activity tracker data served as the foundation for their model.
These included demographic data from the US Census Bureau, 2017 death statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics, and the 2003–06 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey for individuals aged 40 and over.
Some intriguing figures were produced by the modeling.
For the 25 percent of Americans over 40 who were the most active, their daily physical activity was equivalent to 160 minutes of normal-paced walking at 4.8 kilometers per hour, every day.
Based on this, the researchers calculated that the average lifespan of all Americans over 40 would increase by little more than five years if they all engaged in this level of physical activity daily.
As a result, the life expectancy at birth would increase from 76.6 to over 80 years.
Slackers have both good and bad news.
It is well known that a lack of exercise is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and early mortality.
The extent to which low physical activity levels diminish lifespan in specific groups of people or countries has not been made evident.
The researchers estimated how early these individuals are dying by evaluating the positive impact of exercise on life expectancy.
They discovered that "the least physically active 25 percent of the population would need to walk an additional 111 minutes a day at 4.8 kilometers per hour (or similar effort)" in order to reach the same levels as the most physically active 25 percent.
That is about two hours a day, which is a challenge as well as a goal you would have to strive for.
However, the advantages are astounding: according to estimations, these individuals may live an additional 11 years.
This means that without making that effort, individuals could be dying 11 years earlier than they need to.
Overall, those who were least physically active showed the biggest gain in life for every hour walked, with each additional hour of walking adding 376 minutes to their life expectancy - comparable to around six hours.
As physical exercise increased, life expectancy gains declined.
Because more accurate methods of assessing [physical activity] were used, they add, our findings show that [physical exercise] gives considerably higher health advantages than previously anticipated.
The greatest lifetime gain per hour of walking was shown by those in the lowest activity quartile; an hour of walking increased life expectancy by an incredible six hours.
Since this is an observational study, it is impossible to prove cause and effect, and the researchers admit that their findings have been copied in a number of ways.
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