How much you need to exercise to live longer

If suddenly in idle conversation raise the issue, and whether physical activity is useful, we can only sniff, hit the narrow-mindedness of the questioner, and for the order to appeal to ancient philosophy, quoting Aristotle, "Movement - that's life." Yes, exercise can in some sense replace medications reduce the risk of disease and premature death.

But if on medication prescriptions issued, which stipulates how regularly and how much to take it, to exercise, this was not applied as a strict order. Controversies and research on this topic in the medical community have led to the golden mean of 150 minutes per week, slightly more than willing to spend the average inhabitant of the planet, but at the same time smaller than we suspected.

Questions on the agenda

However, several themes remain open to scholars. Among other things, the question arose of how to understand this importance - as a necessary minimum time or the ideal number? There were also suspicions, not whether the violation of the rules is fraught with the deteriorating state of health, and whether there are exercises that are more or less effective with respect to each other. And it seems that two recent studies these topics exhausted.

The American experiment

The US National Cancer Institute, Harvard University and a few other large institutions have processed the information obtained in the course of the six major medical examination, about what constitutes a complex exercise subjects, and relate the results with data on more than 661,000 middle-aged and elderly people. Next they defeated these people in the group, members one of which did not exercise at all, while others - have given this various times and did so with varying degrees of intensity.

After 14 years after the start of the experiment, it was found that a fully passive group was much more at risk of early death, which, in general, is not surprising. The members of the group that made at least some gestures that are different from the everyday at least 20 percent improved their chances of a long life. Those who held himself "150 minutes a week" in the strict framework of the program, increased the likelihood of living longer first group by 31 percent. But then, to the joyful surprise of scientists, followed by a light gap pattern: a group that paid daily training just over an hour, giving a total of 450 minutes a week reduced the possibility of his early death by 39 percent. And at that point graph of the results came in flat phase: the training has grown, and the chances of a long life - no longer exists, but the increase in load is also not turned early death.

The Australian experiment

In a similar vein to study the issue and Australia. Local researchers have assembled a group of 200 000 adults and had a survey, how much time they spend an active lifestyle, and these activities graded according to the degree of vigor (eg jogging and football at times more resource-intensive than walking tour and cricket respectively). As in the previous experiment, Australian researchers looked at mortality statistics: the risks of dying young was lower among those who followed the recommendations for the duration of training, even if it was a simple walking.

Next, attention was focused on the adherents of vigorous sports. Those who have a third of their weekly schedule fiznagruzok gave a sports team, the chance to live longer increased by only 9 per cent, compared with those who spend on training the same amount of time, but obediently complied with all regulations. But those who are expelled from the sweat buckets more than a third of their training time, raised the chances of dying later, to 13 percent relative to the quieter subjects. Growth was found mortality, even among those who plunged into a purely grueling workout.

Reservations

Anyway, it is necessary to bear in mind that these studies have excluded many other factors that play a role in life, and only give reason to be confident that the exercise will definitely have a relationship with longevity, but not that they regulate it directly.

Standards

But net result we have the following conclusion, which is no doubt that 150 minutes of exercise, and 20-30 minutes of vigorous sport per week should be the best regime for any physically full human, and goes beyond it does not threaten to send you to the next world.