LIVE LONG AND PROSPER

All of you reading this have probably been aware of this fact, but an article in the New York Times has now scientifically proven it.

"Running for as little as five minutes a day could significantly lower a person’s risk of dying prematurely, according to a large-scale new study of exercise and mortality. The findings suggest that the benefits of even small amounts of vigorous exercise may be much greater than experts had assumed."

Pat yourselves on the back. Tell the naysayers "I told you so." Look in the mirror and be very, very proud of yourself.

"So for the new study, published Monday in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers from Iowa State University, the University of South Carolina, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., and other institutions turned to a huge database maintained at the Cooper Clinic and Cooper Institute in Dallas."

"From this database, the researchers chose the records of 55,137 healthy men and women ages 18 to 100 who had visited the clinic at least 15 years before the start of the study. Of this group, 24 percent identified themselves as runners, although their typical mileage and pace varied widely.

The researchers then checked death records for these adults. In the intervening 15 or so years, almost 3,500 had died, many from heart disease.

 

But the runners were much less susceptible than the nonrunners. The runners’ risk of dying from any cause was 30 percent lower than that for the nonrunners, and their risk of dying from heart disease was 45 percent lower than for nonrunners, even when the researchers adjusted for being overweight or for smoking (although not many of the runners smoked). And even overweight smokers who ran were less likely to die prematurely than people who did not run, whatever their weight or smoking habits.

 

As a group, runners gained about three extra years of life compared with those adults who never ran.

 

THREE YEARS!! I'll take it. You know why? Because, in the words of an old neighbor of mine who died at age 97, "When I'm dead, I'm gonna be dead for a long time."

 

The news gets even better!

 

"Remarkably, these benefits were about the same no matter how much or little people ran. Those who hit the paths for 150 minutes or more a week, or who were particularly speedy, clipping off six-minute miles or better, lived longer than those who didn’t run. But they didn’t live significantly longer those who ran the least, including people running as little as five or 10 minutes a day at a leisurely pace of 10 minutes a mile or slower."

 

You do not have to be a world-class runner to enjoy these health benefits. Slow or fast, long or short, running is simply really damn good for you.

 

As little as five minutes of running can extend your life. Tell that to your friends who whine, "I don't have the time to run."

 

So continue to get out there and work on your moving life insurance policy.

 

Thanks to this study a great sport has gotten greater.