A new report claims that people who put off regular exercise until they hit the age of 50 can still benefit from physical activity. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it appears to take 10 years for the effects to kick in.
The Swedish study found that exercise made no difference in premature death rates for at least a decade for those who waited until later in life to start exercising. Researchers made their conclusions after following more than 2,200 men for 20 years. All of the participants followed exercise advice from professional trainers and physical therapists, and were monitored by doctors throughout the study.
Researchers say they divided study participants into low, medium and high activity groups. According to the study, which was recently published in the British Medical Journal, about half the men reported a high level of exercise, corresponding to at least three hours of sport or heavy gardening each week. In addition, about a third said they exercised moderately by taking walks and cycling. Meanwhile, the rest of the volunteers did little or no exercise.
Not surprisingly, researchers noted that death rates were highest among the sedentary group, and lowest among the most active volunteers in the first five years of the study. However, after 10 years the men who began exercising at 50 had similar death rates to those in the high activity group. Doctors say the study’s results were similar to giving up smoking. Researchers say the findings also suggest that further research needs to be conducted to see what amount of physical activity makes a difference on health.
“It has been shown that young people benefit from exercise but this is the first time we have been able to show that old people can also benefit from increasing their physical activity,” a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden, said in a recent interview with news reporters.
Bottom line: It’s not too late to start an exercise regime.
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