Running for as little as 75 minutes per week can add 12 years to your life. That’s according to a new study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health.
It looked specifically at telomeres, the structures at the end of chromosomes. As a general rule, the longer and more numerous telomeres are, the better your cellular health. As we age, our telomere number and length naturally decrease – but exercise seems to go some way in slowing the decline.
This latest study found that 75 minutes of jogging/running per week versus not running at all resulted in ‘a biological age difference of approximately 12 years in favour of runners’. The study authors looked at more than 4,400 subjects, comparing those who ran at least 75 minutes a week with those who ran less than 10 minutes a week.
It’s worth noting that the authors didn’t measure actual mortality, just ‘cellular’ ageing. However, as they pointed out, ‘reduced telomere length has been shown to correlate with increased mortality and risk of various chronic diseases’.
When it comes to exercise, there’s also another metric to consider other than lifespan: 'healthspan'. This is a term to describe how long someone lives with chronic disease that disables them, and myriad studies have attested to exercise’s ability to reduce the chances of everything from Alzheimer’s to cancer.
In short, keep running regularly and you can increase both the quantity and quality of your life.
