This much physical activity could help prevent 1 in 10 premature deaths

By Alice Clifford via SWNS

Meeting just half the recommended weekly target of physical activity can prevent one-in-10 premature deaths, a new study revealed.

The current recommended target is 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, which can stop 16 percent of early deaths.

However, doing just 75 minutes a week, or just over ten minutes a day, could still have a significant effect, reducing the risk of premature deaths by ten percent.

Exercising can prevent fatalities from cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, including those of the neck and head and myeloid leukemia.

The research team deployed a new framework that enabled them to compare studies measuring and reporting physical activity in many different ways.

Their study excluded the energy used when resting and explored the links between leisure time physical activity and specific types of cancer and cardiovascular issues.

They pooled the data of more than 30 million people from 196 studies.

The data showed the amount a person had exercised and what they died from.

Most participants reported that they had not reached 300 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity.

This is equivalent to below 17.5 metabolic equivalent of task (MET) hours per week.

METs is the amount of energy or calories used per minute of physical activity.

The evidence base was largest for deaths from all causes and new diagnoses of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Those with higher levels of weekly physical activity had a lower risk of all these outcomes.

Differences in risk were greater between zero and 8.75 weekly MET hours per week.

To compare, 8.75 MET hours per week is equivalent to 150 minutes of exercise per week – the recommended weekly target.

There was less of a difference in risk above this level up to 17.5 MET hours per week.

Compared with inactive adults, those clocking up 8.75 MET hours per week, or 150 minutes, were 29 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease.

They also had a 31 percent lower likelihood to die from all causes.

However, the link was weaker for different types of heart disease, with the strongest reduction observed for coronary heart disease being 21 percent lower.

What is more, those reaching the recommended amount of exercise were 15 percent less likely to die from any cancer.

However, this amount of exercise was more significant at preventing head and neck cancers, myeloid leukemia, myeloma and stomach cancer.

The risk of developing these cancers were between 22 percent and 35 percent lower.

Exercising also reduced the risk of lung, liver, womb, bowel and breast cancer, with a five per cent to 16 percent lower risk.

By doing the recommended amount of moderate exercise, 150 minutes per week, 16 per cent of all recorded premature deaths would have been prevented.

What is more, ten percent of all deaths would have been stopped if everyone had just clocked up half this weekly target.

The researchers acknowledge that the included studies relied on self-reported physical activity levels, meaning they sometimes made assumptions about the intensity and duration of exercise.

Soren Brage, from the MRC Epidemiology Uni at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine and the study author, said: “Appreciable population health benefits might be gained from increasing [physical activity] levels of people who are inactive to just half the current health recommendations, with further benefits for all reaching at least the recommended level, and smaller additional benefits beyond that.”

The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.