Moving a little more and eating and sleeping a little better are strongly associated with lower mortality, especially in people who take less care of these healthy habits, as confirmed by two studies published in the journals The Lancet and in eClinicalMedicine.
Both investigations make more robust a thesis about which there is increasingly more solid scientific evidence: reducing sedentary lifestyle even a little, and improving the quality of diet and sleep has a very positive impact on health itself and on people’s own survival.
The Lancet study focuses, specifically, on how it affects people to do 5 more minutes a day of moderate physical activity, meaning walking, for example, at an average speed of 5 kilometers/hour.
Just those 5 more minutes a day are associated with a 10% reduction in all deaths in most adults (who accumulate about 17 minutes of moderate-intensity activity on average), and about 6% in all deaths in the least active people (who do activity at this intensity on average for about 2 minutes a day).
For its part, reducing sedentary time by 30 minutes a day is related to an estimated 7% reduction in all deaths among adults who spend 10 hours a day sedentary, and around 3% if adopted by people who spend 12 hours a day without moving.
Additionally, staying active at at least moderate intensity for an additional 10 minutes a day is associated with a 15% reduction in all deaths among most adults and a 9% reduction among the least active.
The study is based on the analysis of data from more than 135,000 adults from seven cohorts in the United States, Norway and Sweden, as well as from the United Kingdom Biobank, with an average follow-up of 8 years.
Using device-measured physical activity and sedentary time, researchers estimate the proportion of deaths potentially preventable through small daily increases in moderate to vigorous physical activity or reductions in sedentary time.
“This research consolidates the evidence that exists so far with a large population sample, especially relevant in a context in which pharmacological approaches receive more attention than the proven relevance of living conditions,” says Luis Cereijo, researcher in Public Health at the University of Alcalá de Henares in a reaction to the study.
Sleep, move and nourish yourself
For its part, research collected in eClinicalMedicine, a journal from The Lancet group, concludes that combining small improvements in sleep, physical activity and diet has an impact on a longer life, especially in people who have worse habits.
Five extra minutes of sleep, two minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (such as brisk walking or climbing the stairs), and half an extra serving of vegetables a day could result in an extra year of life for those with the worst rest, exercise, and eating habits, the authors conclude.
An optimal combination of these behaviors: sleeping 7 to 8 hours, doing 40 minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity a day, and eating a healthy diet could mean more than 9 years of additional life expectancy and good health.
The conclusions of this second investigation are based on the study of almost 60,000 people from the United Kingdom Biobank, recruited between 2006 and 2010, and with an average follow-up of eight years.
Both research focuses on general benefits to society based on data collected in rich countries and not on specific people. The authors highlight the need to do more studies of this type in nations with lower incomes.
Small changes, big benefits
Despite the observational nature of both studies, both reinforce the evidence that really very small and realistic changes in habits can have important benefits in reducing mortality from all causes, the reactions to these works collected in Science Media Center agree.
A little over a month ago, research published in Nature Medicine concluded that moderate physical activity can delay the appearance of symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease by up to seven years in people at risk of suffering from it.
Last summer, a team of researchers from the Cajal Neuroscience Center of the CSIC demonstrated in an animal model that moderate physical exercise improves the health of the intestinal microbiota, which in turn has very positive repercussions on the cognitive performance of the brain.
JAMA magazine also reported another study a few months ago in which it was found that people who practice physical activity from the age of 60 reduce the risk of death or cardiovascular disease by between 30% and 40%.
(With EFE report)
