It’s Official – Get Off of Your Butt and Move Around

According to the Washington Post today, a daily workout can add years to your life, and increase the quality of your remaining years. While this would seem to be a firm grasp of the obvious, a study, published this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine, is reported to be the first to quantify the benefits:

Moderate and high physical activity levels led to 1.3 and 3.7 years more in total life expectancy and 1.1 and 3.2 more years lived without cardiovascular disease, respectively, for men aged 50 years or older compared with those who maintained a low physical activity level. For women the differences were 1.5 and 3.5 years in total life expectancy and 1.3 and 3.3 more years lived free of cardiovascular disease, respectively.

The authors concluded:

. . .avoiding a sedentary lifestyle during adulthood not only prevents cardiovascular disease independently of other risk factors but also substantially expands the total life expectancy and the cardiovascular disease–free life expectancy for men and women.

If exercise increases the number of years free of cardiovascular disease “independently of other risk factors”, would the interaction between exercise and a healthy diet also be quantifiable? What about other effects, such as joint problems and diabetes, associated with poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle? With so much of the news devoted to crises in health care financing of one form or another, along with the signal that medical expenses can bankrupt you, the message seems to be clear – get off of your butt and move around.