After age 60, doing 15 minutes of physical exercise a day is associated with a 22% lower risk of premature death. Result of a study carried out in Saint-Etienne.
“Age is no excuse for not doing physical exercise”, this is the message delivered by Dr. David Hupin, sports doctor at the Saint-Etienne University Hospital. In a study he presented at the EuroPRevent 2016 Congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the researcher succeeded in demonstrating that even a little physical exercise is better than no activity in the elderly.
His team started from the observation that thecurrent recommendations of the WHO are unattainable for many seniors. The Organization has indeed set the bar high by recommending: either 150 minutes of moderate-intensity endurance activity per week, or at least 75 minutes of sustained-intensity endurance activity per week.
A decade-long follow-up
The authors of these works relayed by the healthlog website then studied 2 cohorts: the first, French, made up of 1,011 subjects aged 65 in 2001, was followed over a period of 12 years. The second, an international cohort, included 122,417 60-year-old subjects followed for approximately 10 years.
The physical activity of these participants was measured in “Metabolic Equivalent of Task” (MET). This is a method for measuring the intensity of physical activity and the associated energy expenditure.
Thus, 1 MET minute per week corresponds to a quantity of energy spent sitting (known as “low”). Between 3 and 5.9 MET minutes is considered “moderate” intensity activity. Finally, 6 MET minutes (or more) is equivalent to a “vigorous” intensity activity. Recommended exercise levels for these volunteers were estimated at 500 to 1,000 MET minutes/week..
15 minutes of walking per day
Conclusion of the researchers, the data show a dose-dependent relationship between the levels of exercise practiced and the risk of death over the follow-up period, ie 10-12 years. Compared to inactive participants, people with a low level of activity (15 minutes of brisk walking per day), medium and high see their risk of premature death reduced by 22%, 28% and 35% respectively!
“Older people should gradually increase physical activity in their daily lives rather than drastically changing their habits to follow the recommendations. Fifteen minutes a day seems like a reasonable goal for older people and small incremental increases can then bring you closer to the 150 minutes a week recommendation. “, conclude the authors.
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