Disclaimer: Running can’t make you immortal, but it may reduce the danger of early death and improve your health.
A study done at Iowa State University claims that every hour of running can extend your life for up to seven hours. The results from the study were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the results came up with very specific results.
During a 15 year study, 3,413 all-cause and 1,217 cardiovascular deaths occurred. In the group of people that were followed 24% were runners. Compared with non-runners, runners had 30% and 45% lower adjusted risks of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, respectively, with a 3-year life expectancy benefit.
In dose-response analyses, the mortality benefits in runners were similar across quintiles of running time, distance, frequency, amount, and speed, compared with non-runners.
We all already knew that a little daily exercise goes a long way, but apparently as little as five to ten minutes of jogging or runningper day is enough to drop the danger of ‘premature death’ by as much as 40%.
So how did they come up with the seven hours number?
They worked from an “active lifespan” of 40 years, and if a person ran for two hours per week, that would account to less than six months of time used running during that active lifespan.
However, this time spent jogging or running would add 3.2 years to your lifespan, so subtracting the time spent running, you’d be left with a net gain of 2.8 years.
Which comes down to seven additional hours for every hour spent running.
