A Little More Movement Could Add Years to Your Life—Even If You Start Late, New Study Says

It’s not too late to experience the benefits associated with exercising regularly. A new report published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) found that you can still experience the health benefits of physical activity even if you have just started moving.

The research team, led by scientists at the University of Queensland in Australia, discovered that while people who are consistently active throughout their life reduce their risk of dying from any cause by 30 to 40 percent, those who went from being inactive to active lowered their risk factors by 20 to 25 percent as compared with those who remained inactive.

“This aligns with the evidence that physical activity levels lower than the guidelines can also bring appreciable health benefits, and the statement that some physical activity is always better than none,” the researchers wrote. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends that adults should aim for 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes per week of vigorous activity or a combination of the two.

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Previous research typically captured exercise habits at just one moment in time. But this study tracked people’s movement patterns across multiple years, creating a much clearer picture of how sustained activity affects lifespan while accounting for a person's changing patterns of activity throughout their life.

For the study, researchers reviewed data pooled from 85 previous studies on the effects of physical activity on health and the risk of death. The studies ranged in size from 357 participants to more than 6.5 million.

While the study did not specify what counted as physical activity, the researchers followed the WHO guidelines, analyzing energy expenditure above resting metabolic rate. The organization defines physical activity as “any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure." This includes any and all movement, even during leisure time, not just at the gym. So, mopping the floors or taking a brisk walk can count as moderate activity.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists moderate intensity exercise as brisk walking, slow bicycling, doubles tennis, active yoga, ballroom or line dancing, general yard work, or water aerobics, and vigorous exercise as jogging, swimming laps, singles tennis, aerobic dancing, fast bicycling, jumping rope, or yard work that involves digging or shoveling.

The researchers also found that those who were active earlier in life but had decreased their activity levels as they got older still experienced health benefits later in life from the "banked" activity. But the report stressed that being consistently active provides greater health benefits than being previously active.