According to a recent study led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health, older adults may have a lower risk of death from any cause, as well as death from cardiovascular disease and cancer, if they engage in a variety of leisure activities on a weekly basis, such as walking for exercise, jogging, swimming laps, or playing tennis.
The results imply that older persons should take part in leisure activities that they love and can maintain because many of these activities may reduce their chance of passing away, according to the authors.
The results are published in JAMA Network Open on August 24.
The NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study included 272,550 adults between the ages of 59 and 82 who completed questionnaires about their leisure activities. The researchers examined whether engaging in comparable amounts of seven different exercise and recreational activities, such as walking, cycling, swimming, other aerobic exercise, racquet sports, and golf, was linked to a lower risk of death.
In comparison to not participating, the researchers discovered that doing the required amount of physical exercise each week through any combination of these activities was related with a 13% decreased risk of dying from any cause. Racquet sports participation was linked to a 16% risk decrease and running to a 15% reduction when they examined the role of each activity separately. However, all activities were correlated with lower mortality rates.
Adults should perform 2.5 to 5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity or 1.25 to 2.5 hours of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity per week, according to the second edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.
Even bigger reductions in the risk of death were associated with the amounts of exercise performed by the most active people (those who went above and beyond the guidelines for physical activity), although there were diminishing returns as activity levels rose. Even those who engaged in some recreational activity, even if it was less than what was advised, had a 5% lower risk of passing away than those who did not engage in any of the activities examined.
Additionally, these activities were linked to a lower chance of dying from cancer and cardiovascular disease. Running was linked to the highest reduction in risk of cancer deaths (19% reduction), whereas playing racquet sports was linked to the greatest reduction in risk of cardiovascular deaths (27% reduction).
Who
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute Eleanor L. Watts, D.Phil., M.P.H.
On August 24, JAMA Network Open published a study titled “Associations of Leisure Time Physical Activity Types with Risks of All-Cause, Cardiovascular, and Cancer Mortality among Older Adults” (link is external).
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