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Longevity Guaranteed
Extend your lifespan six to
nine years
by Hal Higdon
Scientists now believe that by exercising regularly, and sometimes strenuously, we can extend our lives not two years, as previously thought, but six to nine years. And improve the quality of those lives.
Why haven't scientists told us this yet? At least while under scrutiny of their peers, scientists grow cautious. They hedge their bets. They qualify their statements. For that reason, you may not see the six-to-nine warrantee headlined in peer-reviewed journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine for a while. But trust me: The proof is there. Keep running each day, entering the occasional 5-K or marathon, and you'll outlive your sedentary neighbors.
Longevity research during the last half century has focused on British bus drivers, San Francisco longshoremen, Iowa farmers and Harvard alumni. In 1953, Professor Jeremy N. Morris matched sedentary drivers of London double-deck buses with their physically more active conductors, whose duties required them to continuously go up and down stairs. The conductors suffered fewer heart attacks than the drivers.
In studies of San Francisco longshoremen in 1972 by Stanford University's Ralph Paffenbarger, M.D., those working heavy jobs on the docks outlived those working cushier jobs in the office. P.R. Pomrehn published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1982 comparing Iowa farmers and townsmen. The harder-working farmers had 10 percent lower coronary heart disease risk than their friends in town.
The Correct Dose
The Mother of All Longevity Studies, the one most quoted by those promoting exercise, is that conducted by Dr. Paffenbarger on Harvard Alumni. Dr. Paffenbarger's data suggested that if you started exercising at age 35, you extended your life 2.51 years. For all ages between 35 and 79, the extension averaged 2.15 years. Also, longevity was dose related. As you increased energy expenditure from 100 to 3,500 calories a week, your risk declined. How you exercised also affected longevity. "The dose-response relationship of exercise vs. coronary disease," reported Dr. Pafffenbarger, "was not merely a matter of total energy output per week but also reflected intensity of exercise."
What is the best, most convenient and least expensive exercise for most individuals? One involving some intensity. Walking is good; running is better.
How do you get from the two-plus years in the Harvard study to the six-to-nine years suggested above? Dr. Paffenbarger concedes his projections were conservative. As an epidemiological researcher following a paper trail, he dealt with numbers as much as people. In contrast, at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D. has hands-on data involving 80,000 patients, seen by his staff of 18 physicians over a span of three decades.
I blinked
It was during a visit to Dr. Cooper several years ago for a physical examination, that he suggested privately that exercise could improve longevity by six to eight years. I admit: I blinked. That number seemed incredibly high, almost audacious, so in a later visit to Dallas, while researching my latest book, Masters Running, I cornered Dr. Cooper's colleague Steven N. Blair, P.E.D., a past president of the American College of Sports Medicine, asking him to confirm those numbers, expecting them to be downsized. "The numbers are wrong," said Dr. Blair, pausing for effect. "It's six to nine years." And in a later conversation, Dr. Paffenbarger upped the ante to seven to ten years based on his reading of the Cooper research.
But you may not see those numbers in the New England Journal of Medicine immediately. Publication of peer-reviewed medical research--even when common sense tells us it is correct--takes years before being presented to doctors, then to the public, and before the public accepts it as fact and begins to act.
In the meantime, take my word that running is good for you--and may help you lead a long and active life.
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