Runners Live Longer and Retain Function
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
A debate in fad fitness is if you need aerobic activity to lose weight, or if weightlifting is sufficient. The larger issue is that you need to use your cardiovascular system for health.
A 21 year long study from the Stanford University School of Medicine found that older runners live longer and suffer fewer disabilities than healthy non-runners.
All 440 study participants were 50 years old or over at the beginning of the study. All ran an average of four hours a week. By the end of the study, all were in their 70s, 80s, and older, running an average of 76 minutes a week.
At the 19 year mark in the study, 34 percent of the non-runners had died, compared with 15 percent of the runners. Onset of disability was delayed in runners by an average of 16 years.
Lead study author, Dr. James Fries, is almost 70, runs 20 miles a week and plays tennis. He stated the positive numbers for runners was not even as high as compared to average populations, because "the control group was pretty darn healthy." The "health gap" between runners and non-runners increased with age. Fries said, "I always thought that the two curves would start to parallel each other and that eventually aging would overpower exercise. We can't find even a little twitch toward that gap narrowing in the present time."
Study authors also stated that, "The findings probably apply to a variety of aerobic exercises, including walking."
Study was published in the Aug. 11 2008 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Conventional medical texts originally stressed that exercise would harm elders. That viewpoint led to disastrous decades of needless infirmities among people who could have retained mobility and independence.
In 1980, Dr. Fries wrote a landmark paper of his "compression of morbidity" hypothesis, that "regular exercise would compress, or reduce, the amount of time near the end of life when a person was disabled or unable to carry out the activities of daily living, such as walking, dressing and getting out of a chair."
Stay active, keep moving whatever your age. It is the most important medicine you have.
Related Posts:
- What is "Fitness as a Lifestyle?"
- Exercise and Aging - Don't Limit the Patient to Limit the Pain
- Are You Stronger Than A 67 Year Old Lady?
- Pearl is 97
- Farm Work, Lifestyle Exercise, and Preventing Overuse Pain
- Parcours - Old Fun Is New Exercise
- Married 63 Years With Good Balance
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Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy. See Dr. Bookspan's Books.
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Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy. See Dr. Bookspan's Books.
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Labels: aerobic, aging, performance enhancing modality, running, walking, weight loss
3 Comments:
At Thursday, January 15, 2009 7:53:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
...great article//.....nice to see
something you believe
validated by actually having data....
ted
At Tuesday, February 03, 2009 7:17:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
I just started reading your blog. I think it is great and helpful, I never realized how many things I was doing wrong. I read on your blog that we don't need shoes with arch supports, what do you think about running shoes? Do you think it is helpful to have good running shoes or would any kind of shoes work provided you have the proper technique?
Also how can I e-mail a question to you?
Thank you,
anonymous
At Friday, February 06, 2009 9:01:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Hello from an Internet cafe in Asia. I am away with almost no Internet access. It has been difficult to post regular articles to the Fitness Fixer, but worth it for great readers like you.
A quick reply - my coins are running out, and this keyboard is not in English:
The concept is that you can support and position your own arches without inserts using your foot, ankle, and lower leg muscles to position your feet and ankles. If you don't hold up your own arches, they may sag. That is different from a blanket statement that no one needs arch support. Good arches can and should come from your own muscles and how you use them. Many people flatten their arches right over their arch supports and expensive orthotics.
For a question on specific running shoes, it depends how you run - if you let arches sag or allow your knees and feet to do unhealthy things, no shoe will completely control it. If you keep good mechanics, even when barefoot or in flip-flops, you can be fine. You determine healthy foot/arch positioning. Some shoes are better padded, but if you stomp around, even good padding may not overcome that. Find ones comfortable to you. Expensive engineered shoes shouldn't be needed just to run around.
Check my Fitness Fixer index - www.drbookspan.com/fitfix-index - for many posts on foot and ankle positioning and impact. My books cover much more - www.DrBookspan.com/books.
I think I already received your e-mail to my personal address and replied to it.
Keep in touch with your success story and photos for your story.
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