Just fifteen minutes of exercise a day will be enough for people to see a huge cut in the risk of dying early. Brisk walking has been found to lower the risk by 22 percent, according to experts.
Unfortunately, less than half of older adults are able to achieve the recommended duration of exercise a day. The NHS has recommended two and a half hours of moderate exercise per week. Experts were then determined to find out if a lower recommendation of exercise will be enough to reduce mortality.
Researchers observed two groups of people with the first being 1,011 French people aged 65-years old for a period of 12 years. The second group was composed of 122,417 international people aged 60-years old or more than 10 years.
The study looked to measure physical activity by looking at the amount of energy or calories expended along with the associated risk of death across four different categories of weekly activity. Researchers also made recommendations with regard to the correct level of exercise to be achieved in a week.
During the follow-up, 9 percent of the French people remained while 15 percent from the international group remained, according to Daily Mail. Older adults with low activity levels had a 22 percent lower risk of death. Adults with medium and high intensity activity levels had a 28 and 35 percent lower risk, respectively. The risk of death decreased as the level of exercise increased.
The study showed that the more physical activity older adults did, the greater benefit was achieved. Doctors claim that the short amount of time proposed by the new study will be a reasonable target for adults to achieve daily. Experts at the Public Health England claim that just a little of exercise is better than nothing.
A low level of activity is equivalent to a 15-minute brisk walk daily. Other activities that can be included as 15-minutes of exercise include tennis, cycling and weeding the garden, according to Telegraph.
"Age is not an excuse to do no exercise," according to Dr. David Hupin from the University Hospital of Saint-Etienne in France. Hupin explains that regular physical activity has long been established to contribute to a better overall effect on health compared to any other medication treatment.
